In John Calipari’s return to Memphis, the Tigers played the No. 14 Arkansas Razorbacks in a charity exhibition to benefit St. Jude in the second annual Hoops for St. Jude Tipoff Classic. After a back-and-forth first half, the visitors dominated both sides of the ball in the second half to win 99-75.
Before the game, Calipari received a standing ovation from the 9,563 people in FedExForum, had a video package honoring his nine years at Memphis and players from the teams from 2000-09 greeted him.
“It wouldn’t have happened if the University of Memphis did not want this to happen or if St. Jude wouldn’t say ‘yes, let’s tie this all together,’” Calipari said.
While reflecting on his time in the Bluff City, he said, “We went through so much together here. That doesn’t go away. Look, we could talk all ‘well, you’re at this school, you’re at that school.’ It’s all about relationships; with your players and with the people that help you in the program.”
Once the game got underway, Memphis started the game white hot, going on a 7-0 run led by Dug McDaniel, who finished with 19 points.
This start blossomed into a much larger lead thanks to the home team’s great defense. The Tigers led by as much as 15 while forcing seven Razorback turnovers and holding the visitors to just 33% from the field by the under-eight timeout.
After that, Arkansas relied on Meleek Thomas, who scored 14 points in the first half, and climbed back into the game before Quante Berry hit a tough layup plus the foul to give Memphis a three-point halftime lead.
“We didn’t finish well the last five minutes,” Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway said. “Made some mistakes, but that’s going to happen with a new team.”
The first half suggested this game would be a sprint to the finish, but the Tigers collapsed on both sides of the ball in the second half. After hitting a few shots early, the Tigers shot 24.3% from the field in the second half while allowing Arkansas to shoot 64.5%.
As for the defense, the Tigers got bullied inside. Memphis’ rotation of bigs struggled to contain the length and size of Arkansas, giving up a whopping 36 points in the paint in the second half and 56 such points for the whole game.
When asked if paint defense would be a concern going forward, Hardaway said, “Right now, no.”
The Tigers will play one more exhibition game in Atlanta against the Auburn Tigers on Thursday. After that, Memphis will play its first regular-season game on Nov. 8 against San Francisco.
While Arkansas won the exhibition game, the real winner in all of this was St. Jude. For the second year in a row, the city of Memphis has put on a great tune-up event on the court that benefits a phenomenal organization off the court, and here’s hoping that there are plenty more of these going forward.
