Being a UVA Basketball fan, you threw yourselves into a fit when Memphis beat UConn in Maui last month.
The Tigers also have wins over Missouri, UNLV, Michigan State and Clemson, but it’s UConn that has you up at night.
Ignore the loss to Auburn – that slimeball Bruce Pearl has the best team in the country right now.
It’s hard to ignore the 13-point home loss to Arkansas State, though.
That one sub-KenPom 100 loss is enough to give you hope tomorrow night.
All new
Just one guy from last year’s Memphis team, the one that drubbed the ‘Hoos, 77-54, is back on this year’s squad, 6’7” grad senior Nick Jourdain, who had two points and two assists in 22 minutes in last year’s game.
Jourdain (7.1 ppg, 5.3 rebounds/g, 55.3% FG, 35.7 3FG) is a starter for seventh-year Memphis coach Penny Hardaway, whose team didn’t make the NCAA Tournament last year.
Hardaway consistently recruits great, and consistently does almost nothing with his great recruits – he’s won exactly one NCAA Tournament game in his tenure.
And former UVA Basketball coach Tony Bennett was the “towering fraud.”
Gotcha.
Hardaway uses a three-guard lineup most of the time, with 6’3” junior PJ Hagerty, on his third school in three years, leading the way on the offensive end (21.9 ppg, 6.0 rebounds/g, 3.5 assists/g, 47.1% FG, 39.4% 3FG).
The point guard is 6’0” senior Tyrese Hunter (16.0 ppg, 3.3 assists/g, 46.1% FG, 51.6% 3FG), who is on his third school in four years, and is a high-volume guy from three (6.2 attempts/g).
Gotta be honest here, this guy scares me against the Pack Line.
The other starter at guard is 6’3” grad senior Colby Rogers (13.4 ppg, 45.3% FG, 44.6% 3FG), who is on his fourth school in five years.
The other starter is 6’11” grad senior Moussa Cisse (5.9 ppg, 5.5 rebounds/g, 1.4 blocks/g, 48.6% FG), who is technically on his third school in five years, but it’s worth noting that he started out at Memphis as a freshman, back in 2021, before spending two years at Oklahoma State and a single year at Oklahoma before returning to finish up at Memphis.
Wild stuff, there.
6’9” senior Dain Dainja (10.9 ppg, 6.3 rebounds/g, 51.3% FG), on his third school in his four years in college, gets 24.4 minutes per game off the bench in the post, more than Cisse gets as the starter (19.3).
Memphis is, basically, an AAU team, and an old one – the average D1 experience of the rotation is 3.15 years, which ranks fifth nationally, per KenPom.
Style of play
Fast – KenPom reports that Memphis averages 70.4 possessions per game.
Virginia averages 61.4, the slowest tempo in D1.
Memphis is averaging 13.0 points per game in their last five games on fast breaks, according to data from a new data analytics partner for us here, CBB Analytics, which ranks in the 87th percentile nationally.
Synergy Sports priced itself out of the market – dramatically so.
Virginia averages 3.0 fast-break points per game.
This is in the lowest percentile, probably obviously.
Memphis is a good jump shooting team – in their last five games, the Tigers are 12-of-26 (46.2 percent) on long-range twos and 27-of-55 (49.1 percent) on short-distance threes.
Not as good in the paint – 24-of-72 (33.3 percent) in their last five.
But they are adept on the offensive boards (15.2 second-chance points per game in their last five, 97th percentile) and in scoring points off turnovers (22.4 points per game in their last five, 99th percentile).
Matchup analysis
I came into working on this analysis wanting to like this matchup, but I haven’t been able to convince myself.
I looked back at that Arkansas State loss on CBB Analytics for insight into how that one played out, and what I see is, Arkansas State won that one by making 12 threes and forcing a lot of Memphis misses on jumpers in the paint (3-of-16) and on short-distance threes (4-of-14).
Virginia needs to:
- be aggressive on the offensive end, with an emphasis on paint touches from the guards, to set up rim runs and open threes.
- limit turnovers, which have been an issue this season (UVA’s turnover rate, 20.1 percent, ranks 303rd in the nation, per KenPom; last year’s rate was 13.0 percent, which ranked fourth nationally) to keep Memphis out of transition.
- force Memphis to settle for contested jumpers in the paint.
- close out on long-range twos and short-distance threes.
The challenges:
- Memphis is older.
- Memphis is more athletic.
- We’re going to need Dai Dai Ames back, and it wouldn’t hurt if we could also get Christian Bliss to make his college debut. If, particularly, Ames isn’t available, Memphis wins in a rout akin to last year’s result.
Forecast
- EvanMiya: Memphis 71-66
- Haslametrics: Memphis 67-62
- KenPom: Memphis 69-65
- BartTorvik: Memphis 65-64
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Chris Graham
