Nt Daily Article About Nt/memphis Game

[Mad Hatter]

Mean Green falls to Memphis in first-round NCAA game

Lance Thomas

Issue date: 3/16/07 Section: NEWS

PrintEmail Article Tools Page 1 of 1 In first-round action of the NCAA Tournament the No. 15 seed Mean Green men's basketball team fell short to the No. 2 seed University of Memphis Tigers 58-73 Friday in New Orleans.

NT started the game leading Memphis by as much as six at one point, but it did not finish strong. The last field goal of the first half for the Mean Green came at the 5:25 mark.

"I thought our guys did a tremendous job coming out at the beginning of the game," said head coach Johnny Jones. "I thought they were very aggressive, I thought they played well on the defensive end, I thought on the offensive end we were able to execute early. We got a bunch of easy scores, we got good looks at the basket, and we created some opportunities for us and I thought our guys became more confident at that time."

The Tigers faltered after the tip-off but surpassed NT at the half. Memphis ended the first half of play on a 9-0 run capitalizing the Mean Green's offensive woes.

The Tigers' stifling full court press "wreaked havoc" on the NT offensive. The Mean Green committed 12 turnovers in the first half of play, mostly because of the full court pressure.

Earlier this week, Jones said the team needed to control the rebounds and in the first half Memphis out-rebounded the Mean Green 21-15. Nine of the Tigers' rebounds were offensive, scoring eight second-chance points.

Memphis opened up the second half fully adjusted to the NT's playing style and eventually the Mean Green saw itself down by 17 with just more than seven minutes remaining in the game.

In the second half, Memphis out-rebounded NT by 11, 45-34. Of the 45 Tiger boards 20 of them were offensive. Also Memphis dominated every aspect of the lane. The Tigers scored 40 points in the paint and also blocked 8 shots.

The NT defense however held Memphis to just less than 36 percent from the floor and also forced 16 turnovers on the Tigers.

Junior forward Keith Wooden led NT in points with 16, followed by senior guards Calvin Watson with 13 and Kendrick Davis with 12.

"I just wanted to go out and play hard for my team and those seniors," Wooden said. "I didn't want it to be their last game. I love those guys and I wanted to see them go as far as possible in the tournament so I just tried to go out and play my heart out."

Watson also added four rebounds, but was only allowed four shots from behind the arc.

"Early on in the season we knew we were going to have a successful season because of the hard work that we put in and preparation we had going into early games," Watson said. "Even though we didn't win this game we took a lot from it."

For its first appearance to the NCAA Tournament in 19 years, Jones said he is more than proud of this team.

"Our guys didn't quit," Jones said. "Through it all though, I'm very proud of our basketball team. I thought they had a very gutsy performance."