Memphis women head to AAC tourney with new confidence
It’s safe to say Alex Simmons’ first season as Memphis women’s basketball coach has been up and down.
There was a stretch earlier in the season where the Tigers lost five games in a row. There was also a stretch much more recently where Memphis won five straight, and that’s giving the No. 8 seeded Tigers (13-16, 9-9) plenty of confidence as they prepare for their American Athletic Conference tournament opener on Sunday (noon, ESPN+) against No. 9 seed East Carolina (16-13, 9-9) in Fort Worth, Texas, at Dickies Arena.
“I think we’re the best team in the conference,” fifth-year guard Ki’ari Cain said. “We have games where we beat ourselves, it wasn’t nothing the other teams did. So I just feel like we’ve got to come with more focus that we played with before, and just play together.”
Memphis struggled in non-conference play but still had some moments under Simmons, who came to the Bluff City after five seasons as the coach at Gardner-webb. The Tigers went to Knoxville and took Tennessee (Simmons’ alma mater) to overtime as part of a 4-7 non-conference schedule.
Then came the losing streak, starting with the non-conference finale against Mississippi State and continuing through the beginning of AAC play. The Tigers are last in the AAC in both offensive and defensive field goal percentage but have found a winning formula in the last few weeks. In those last three wins, Memphis held its opponent well under its scoring average of 69.45 points per game.
“It’s definitely a confidence booster,” Simmons said. “And it shows that us not giving up on what we do, us continuing to just push, push, push, is now giving us the results that we want.”
The Pirates knocked the Tigers out of the AAC tournament a year ago, and that means it’s an opportunity for revenge.
Even if the team isn’t necessarily thinking about it that way.
“Last year doesn’t matter at all to me,” Griggs said. “This year, and my team that we have this year is the only thing that matters. I’m not looking in the past and I’m not looking past tomorrow, past today. We’ve got to prepare for ECU like we’ve never played them before.”
With three teams sharing the conference title, Simmons said she thinks the AAC tournament is wide open. Tulsa has the No. 1 seed, and the winner of Sunday’s Memphis-ecu game will face the Golden Hurricane.
Griggs, the former Houston High School star who’s in her final season of collegiate eligibility, will undoubtedly be key if the Tigers are going to go on a run through the conference tournament. She’s sixth in the conference in points per game this season.
“I think we’ve sent a big message to the conference, like ‘We’re still here,’” Griggs said. “Even though we had a tough start, we’re still here. The end of the season is all that matters, and we’re playing our best basketball now. No matter who we’ve played before or what kind of team we were before, in preseason, we’re not the same team.”
Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @thejonahdylan.