NIT First Round Recap - Memphis vs St. John's

(3) Memphis 73, (6) St. John’s 71

In many ways, the Memphis Tigers took the better path on Wednesday night.

There are essentially three different paths to the NIT: 1) Small conference regular season champions get an automatic invite if they fail to win their conference tournaments. 2) Spurned NCAA Tournament bubble teams almost always receive an invitation. 3) Power conference teams that were never really a consideration for the NCAA Tournament are sometimes invited despite finishing in the bottom half of the conference standings. The Memphis Tigers (23-9, 13-3 C- USA) fall into the second category, while the St. John’s Red Storm (17-15, 6-12 Big East) clearly fall into the third. While the first category is something of a wildcard because small conference regular season champions may be excellent or, frankly, awful in relation to big conference opponents, the second category should clearly be superior to the third.
 
Nevertheless, the high-flying Red Storm, who finished in the bottom quarter of the Big East standings, proved to be every bit the equal to the sharp-shooting Tigers, the second-place squad in Conference USA. The teams spent the first half trading outside shots and alley-oops in an entertaining, high scoring 20 minutes before an amped-up Memphis crowd. St. John’s seemed to get the better of the Tigers on the interior, while the Tigers were lights-out from three-point range early. In fact, Memphis hit a stunning 10 of 13 three-point attempts in the half. The Red Storm had a solid first half in its own right on the offensive end of the court, but the boys from New York were only able to connect on 5 of their 12 3-point attempts. The deadeye shooting by the Tigers allowed them to go into the locker room with a commanding 44-35 lead.

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Memphis ’ hot shooters cooled considerably during the halftime break, and the Tigers struggled to score in the second half. The Red Storm took advantage, chipping away at the Memphis lead and finally tying the score with about 11 and a half minutes to go. Memphis kept shooting behind the arc, but the Tigers weren’t able to connect until Wesley Witherspoon hit a trey with under a minute left in the game to put the Tigers up, 69-67.

Witherspoon’s heroics were just beginning, though. After Anthony Mason, Jr. hit one of two free throws for St. John's to make the score 69-68 Memphis with 30 seconds to go, Witherspoon hit both of his free throws to put Memphis up by three. Mason, undaunted, answered with a three-pointer of his own to tie the game at 71 with eleven seconds on the clock. Witherspoon, who scored 18 points off the bench to lead the Tigers, passed up a shot at the top of the key and drove to the left side of the basket, releasing the ball with under a second on the clock. As the game clock hit triple-zero, the ball banked off the backboard and bounced around the rim, for a brief moment appearing like it would pop out and send the game into overtime. The ball finally went down and the Tigers celebrated their hard-fought first-round NIT victory.

As Tiger partisans celebrate, astute Memphis fans must wonder what might have been had coach John Calipari remained at the helm for this season, instead of leaving for bluer pastures in central Kentucky. This Tiger team is a talented bunch, but Coach Cal’s departure broke apart what would have almost certainly been a consensus No. 1 recruiting class. Instead of competing for an NIT title, these Tigers could have potentially featured Kansas superstar Xavier Henry, Kentucky big man DeMarcus Cousins, and Kentucky’s consensus freshman of the year John Wall, in addition to most of the current pack of Tigers. That squad would be preparing for a first-round NCAA Tournament game against an overmatched 16 seed instead of celebrating a first- round NIT victory over a bottom-tier Big East team.

WHAT’S NEXT

No. 3 seed Memphis advances to take on the nearby No. 2 seed Mississippi Rebels (22-10, 9-7 SEC) in the second round of the NIT next week. Ole Miss advanced to the second round earlier in the evening by beating Troy, 84-65.

By: John Cary
BigEast-fans.com Guest Writer