TIGER BASKETBALL: Josh Pastner possibly facing his toughest challenge.
With 10 newcomers making 5th straight NCAA tournament won’t be easy
Josh Pastner should have been answering questions about the University of Memphis’ season opener against No. 11-ranked Wichita State. He should have been talking about the opportunity to be tested right out of the gate by the Shockers on a neutral floor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Tuesday and about how the Tigers plan to deal with Wichita State’s veteran backcourt.
Instead, Pastner spent the first 12 minutes of a 20-minute press conference Friday having to answer questions on whether the Tigers’ 74-70 exhibition loss to Division 2 Christian Brothers University on Wednesday was just a bump in the road to start his sixth season as Memphis’ head coach or an ominous sign.
Rather than talking about trying to lead Memphis to a school record-tying fifth straight NCAA
tournament appearance, Pastner, the only Tigers coach to lead the program to four NCAA tournaments in his first five seasons, was trying to put out his first fire of the season.
“Nobody was good versus Christian Brothers. Everybody was poor. Nobody was graded with an A. Everyone was graded with an F, including the coach,” Pastner said. “I’m the first to tell you we should not lose to Christian Brothers, but it happened. Either this is going to be just a blip in the radar because we’re gonna be sitting here in 2 ½ months saying this team is pretty good, or it’s going to be a sign early on, and then we go from there.
“I believe we’re gonna have a really good year. I believe we’ve got a lot of ability on this team. I also know we are very young, extremely inexperienced (and have) 10 newcomers.”
The 10 newcomers, including a walk-on and two players who were on the team last year but didn’t play (redshirt freshman guard Markel Crawford and sophomore guard Pookie Powell), are the most in one season since freshmen became eligible to play in 1972-73, according to ESPN.com. And it’s because the Tigers have so many new parts that Pastner could be facing his most challenging season as head coach.
It’s one thing to coach veteran players, a luxury Pastner had enjoyed the previous three seasons. But it’s another to take an almost entirely revamped roster and mold it into an NCAA tournament team in one season.
Pastner has done it before, having guided a 2010-11 Memphis team that relied heavily on five freshmen (Will Barton, Antonio Barton, Joe Jackson, Chris Crawford and Tarik Black) to the NCAA tournament. While this year’s crop of newcomers — a mix of transfers, junior-college additions and players who sat out last season — wasn’t as highly touted as Memphis’ 2010 recruiting class, it does have a pair of veteran big men to lean on for leadership in junior forward Shaq Goodwin and sophomore forward Austin Nichols.
“I think there was more pressure last year to make the tournament than there is this year because we had the senior guards and everything,” Nichols said. “But if everyone is twofeet-in and does their job, I think we can go farther than last year (when the Tigers advanced to the third round of the NCAA tournament).”
If Pastner is going to join former Tigers head coach Dana Kirk as the only Memphis coaches to lead the Tigers to five straight NCAA tournaments, he’ll have to show he’s as good a coach as he has been a recruiter. His history — he’s just the seventh Division 1 head coach to win 130 or more games in his first five seasons — suggests he can.
“The one thing we’ve done is we’ve always been able to course correct and make adjustments. That doesn’t mean that we’re gonna see the fine-tuned product and all the adjustments made and finished by Tuesday,” Pastner said. “The goal is to be in the tournament every year. In my five years here, we’ve won basically 75 percent of our games. Academically, we’re graduating guys at record pace and having record APR (academic progress rate) scores. Knock on wood, there’s been nothing off the court with regard to anything that would embarrass the university. So, to me, we’ve been very, very successful at a very high level in all parts of the program.
“I’m very proud of our program for that. That being said, it’s also not a birthright. It’s not easy to win. To win games and get to the tournament every year is very, very, very hard to do. So you have to appreciate it.”