Perfect No More
Wayne Chism had 13 points and seven rebounds.
(Saturday, February 23rd)
Final Score: (2) Tennessee 66, (1) Memphis 62
Memphis, TNÂ - J.P. Prince, a Memphis native, had 13 points, eight rebounds and a pair of huge free throws to lift second-ranked Tennessee over No. 1 Memphis, 66-62, and end the nation’s longest winning streak at 26 in a row, spoiling the Tigers’ bid for a perfect regular season.
Tyler Smith had 16 points, including the go-ahead bucket, and Wayne Chism added 13 and seven rebounds for the Volunteers (25-2), who hadn’t knocked off a top-ranked opponent since 1969, when they toppled then No. 1 South Carolina.
Tennessee, which has won nine straight overall, will now likely be ranked first in the nation for the first time in the program’s history.
“It’s gonna feel great,” UT head coach Bruce Pearl said. “Representing the SEC. Florida did it with such style the last couple years. I think the kids had confidence that they could come in here and win this basketball game.”
Freshman Derrick Rose carried Memphis (26-1), scoring 23 points, grabbing five boards and handing out five assists, but the Tigers shot just 47 percent from the free-throw line and went cold from the floor in the second half en route to seeing their nation’s best 45-game regular-season win streak halted.
The Tigers also had a 47-game home win streak - also the longest in the country - snapped by losing the latest installment of this budding rivalry between in-state heavyweights.
Memphis had a three-point lead after Chris Douglas-Roberts scored off a feed from Rose in transition with 2:19 left in the game. But Smith went right to the rack at the other end, scoring in the paint to make it 61-60.
The Tigers’ next possession lasted more than a minute, as both Rose and Joey Dorsey came up with key tip-backs that resulted in offensive rebounds. But the most crucial board - after a Robert Dozier miss - resulted in a turnover when both Dozier and Dorsey grabbed the carom and brought each other to the floor for a clear travel.
Tennessee got the ball back with 41 seconds on the clock, and Smith buried a short jumper with Dozier right up on him to claim a 62-61 Vols lead with 26.5 ticks showing.
Memphis opted not to call timeout, a move that backfired when Antonio Anderson’s wild runner hit nothing but backboard, and the Tigers were forced to foul Prince with 8.8 seconds left.
Prince, a 47 percent free-throw shooter on the season, rattled in the front end of the one-and-one, then sank the second for a 64-61 count. UT then used a foul to deny Memphis a chance at a tying three-pointer, corralling Rose before he could hoist a shot and with just 4.5 ticks on the clock.
Rose hit the first from the line, then intentionally missed the second, but the rebound came off long to Chris Lofton, the Vols’ best foul shooter.
Lofton calmly drained both from the stripe, and with just 2.9 seconds remaining and the margin at four, Memphis’ undefeated run was all but over.
“With Chris Lofton on the line,” Pearl asked, “Was there any doubt that he was gonna make both?”
Lofton finished with seven points despite a shaky shooting night, as he hit just 2-of-11 field-goal attempts. JaJuan Smith got off to a hot start but ended the night with nine points after sitting much of the second half with intense leg cramps.
Douglas-Roberts ended up with 14 and four rebounds, while Dozier and Anderson had eight points apiece. Memphis made seven of its first 11 three-point attempts but finished the night just 8-of-27 from beyond the arc, and the worst free-throw shooting team (58 percent) in Division I finally saw its one bugaboo beat them.
“They’re a very good team,” said Memphis head coach John Calipari. “They scrap and they just keep going. We got 10 steals, nine blocks, hold them to 37 percent from the floor and lose? But they outscrapped us on the backboard. I can remember offensive plays Prince just ran by two guys. (We) got outfought.”
Memphis led 17-11 through a breakneck opening 5 1/2 minutes, with Douglas- Roberts and Anderson hitting consecutive threes for the six-point bulge.
Despite the Tigers’ hot start - they hit 7-of-12 threes in the first 11 minutes - UT found itself down just two, 26-24, after Ramar Smith’s three- point play just ahead of the nine-minute mark.
Rose sliced his way inside for a deuce to extend the Memphis margin to 31-24, with just over five minutes left in the half. But Chism banked home a baby hook to bring the Vols back within one, 35-34, with under a minute to go, and that count stood at the halftime break.
It was 39-39 with 16:05 remaining after Rose knocked down a jumper in transition, but Tennessee ripped off six straight in the next minute-plus - capped by Prince’s breakaway dunk for a six-point lead.
Chism knocked down his third three of the game to make it 50-43 inside of 12 minutes. But Memphis called timeout, regrouped, and scored four straight out of the break to get back within three.
Dorsey picked up his fourth foul at the 9:43 mark though, forcing him to sit for the next seven-plus minutes.
Douglas-Roberts fed Dozier off a 3-on-2 for a lay-in, cutting the Vols lead to one, but Prince again responded with a hoop to push the UT lead back to 58-55 with under six minutes remaining.
With about 3 1/2 to go, Rose hit a baseline jumper to give Memphis its first lead since early in the second half, at 59-58. But foul shooting continued to plague the Tigers, as Andre Allen missed a pair and Rose missed the front end of a one-and-one to leave the door open for the Vols.
Game Notes
Memphis shot 39.7 percent for the game as a team, and was 0-for-7 from three- point range and 3-for-9 from the line in the second half…St. Joseph’s remains the last team to go through a regular season undefeated, having gone 27-0 in 2003-04…BYU now owns the nation’s longest home winning streak, at 45 games…Tennessee, likely to be ranked number one in the country, has never been the top team in the nation…Lofton had just one point and missed his only field-goal during the first half…UT now leads the all-time series, 12-7.
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