MISFIRING
‘It’s a W,’ Pastner says after Memphis struggles to win
DALLAS — It was ugly and possibly costly.
But the University of Memphis came out of SMU’s Moody Coliseum on Wednesday night with something it hadn’t managed since the 2008-09 season — a win.
“It’s a W,” said Memphis coach Josh Pastner, whose Tigers had lost to SMU in their previous two trips to Moody Coliseum.
This time, they had Geron Johnson to pull them through. The junior guard from Dayton, Ohio, scored 12 of his 19 points in the second half in an otherwise nightmarish offensive effort for the Tigers, who won their 13th straight game, 60-52, despite shooting a season-low 29.8 percent.
But the victory, which earned Memphis (19-3, 8-0 in Conference USA) sole possession of first place in the league, might have come at a cost.
With 4:45 left in the second half and the Tigers clinging to an eight-point lead, freshman forward Shaq Goodwin was called for a Flagrant 2 foul on SMU sophomore guard Jalen Jones and ejected. Goodwin fouled Jones on a fast-break layup attempt.
C-USA assistant commissioner Courtney Morrison Archer, who attended the game, said the foul would be reviewed by league officials Thursday. If it is upheld as a flagrant foul, Goodwin will automatically be suspended for one game per C- USA rules.
After the game, Pastner pleaded with Archer to have league officials review the foul, which he believed didn’t deserve the Flagrant 2 ruling.
“The officials said there’s no way he should be (suspended for a game). They told me that,” Pastner said.
Goodwin, the team’s sec- ond-leading rebounder and fifth-leading scorer, would be a major loss for Memphis if he can’t play Saturday at Southern Miss (18-5, 7-1), which fell 60-58 at Central Florida on Wednesday to fall out of a first-place tie with the Tigers.
As for Wednesday’s game, Goodwin wasn’t much of a factor, registering just three points and three rebounds.
In fact, other than Johnson, sophomore Adonis Thomas (14 points, nine rebounds) and Joe Jackson (seven points, seven rebounds) were the only Memphis players who made more than one field goal against an SMU defense that switched from a 2-3 zone to a 1-3-1 zone to man-to-man.
“They switched up defenses a lot,” said Thomas, who went just 3 of 9 from the field but connected on 7 of 8 free throws. “It was on us to figure out what kind of defense they were playing. There were some shots we could have made.
“I mean, it’s 13 in a row. It’s
a great streak. It’s a road win, so it’s great for our team.”
Though Memphis was good enough defensively to win, limiting SMU to 31.1-percent shooting, it gave up 15 second-chance points off 15 offensive rebounds for the Mustangs (12-12, 2-7), who had dropped 10 of their last 14 games coming in.
Junior guard Nick Russell’s 17 points led the Mustangs.
AS THE GAME TURNED