Basketball - Memphis Tigers Aiming For The National T

The Memphis Tigers are on a roll and enjoying every moment of it. The Tigers are ranked sixth in the nation and have had the longest winning streak in the nation with 17 games. One wonders what would have happened if Shawne Williams and Darius Washington has not off to play professional basketball at the NBA.

Senior guard Jeremy Hunt also ponders about this. He said that he and the rest of the team keep thinking about what would have happened to the scoring if Williams and Washington were still with the team.

The Tigers are at 25-3 and made school history by wrapping up the second straight Conference USA title outright. They have now won three of the last four Conference USA titles. The defending national champion Florida is the only other team that has won as many wins as the Tigers in the last two seasons.

This is an amazing feat for the Tigers specially since they lost their top scorer and senior Rodney Carney, who was NBA’s first round pick, and they also lost Williams and Washington to the NBA. Washington did not get drafted but could not return to the Tigers since he had signed up with an agent.

Coach John Calipari must be marveling at his current team. He has led the Tigers to a minimum of 20 wins in each of his seven seasons with the team. He ended up with having just 56 percent of the offense, 50 percent of the defense and lost 3 starters. He has a young team now but he knows that they are very good.

The Tigers are ranked ninth in scoring offense with 80.4 points, fifth in scoring margin with 17.9 points per game, sixth in steals with 10.2 and eighth in field goal percentage defense with 38.3 percent. They did not celebrate their league title because they want to win the national title. If they do so, it would be first for them.