Storybook game for Memphis was nightmare for Bennett

By Jerry Ratcliffe

All season long, Penny Hardaway has barked about his Memphis team being disrespected by poll voters. After totally dismantling No. 22-ranked Virginia on Tuesday night, the Tigers’ third-straight win over a ranked opponent, Hardaway can probably stop campaigning.

Memphis (9-2) handcuffed the visiting Cavaliers (9-2) as soon as they got off the bus at FedEx Forum and led wire-to-wire in a 77-54 rout. After trailing by 12 points before it could blink, UVA regained its poise and trailed by only 38-32 at the break. The Tigers turned up the pressure in the second half and blitzed Virginia 39-22 (for a blow-by-blow account, see related story here).

The showdown evolved the way Hardaway hoped it would, with the Tigers capitalizing on their experience and athleticism to rattle Virginia and take the visitors completely out of their game. In a battle of contrasting styles of play, Memphis’ fast-paced tempo easily won out over UVA’s deliberate rhythm.

“It was just a dream come true for me, just being a basketball fan,” Hardaway said about delivering a haymaker to Virginia. “Secondly, to be able to score 77 points on Virginia, that just doesn’t happen. Then to hold them to 22 points in the second half, I mean, this is storybook for me because I have so much respect for [Tony Bennett] and his program.”

If it was a storybook for Hardaway, it was a horror show for Bennett, who watched his rather inexperienced team get cut to ribbons. At times with two to three freshmen and two sophomores on the floor, Virginia found it challenging to match up against a Memphis roster that averaged 23 years old.

The Cavaliers couldn’t handle the Tigers’ suffocating pressure. Coming into the game ranked No. 2 in the nation in fewest turnovers per game, Virginia lost the handle 18 times (the most by a UVA team since 2020), which Memphis converted into 27 points.

They say defense travels, but the Cavaliers must have failed to pack it for the trip, as the nation’s No. 2 defense was shredded so badly that Bennett shockingly resorted to playing zone for a short span late in the game.

Memphis sliced, diced and shishkabobed Bennett’s vaunted Pack-Line defense to the point where the Virginia coach had no answers.

“Their experience, their quickness and athleticism is real,” Bennett said of the Tigers. “If you don’t have a level of real good soundness and tough-mindedness, it’s hard to stay attached, and they took it to us. It was either a careless turnover or they made a play and we broke down defensively. We couldn’t even do that well.”

Virginia didn’t do much of anything well, shooting 39 percent from the field (22 for 56), 21 percent from the 3-point arc (4 of 19). Isaac McKneely, who came into the game leading the nation in 3-point shooting accuracy, turned in his second-straight dud, missing all five attempts from deep and going 1 for 8 shooting as Memphis blanketed him from the get-go.

“I think we got rattled and the offense bled into the defense,” Bennett said. “In every area, they were kind of taking it to us, so this won’t be a fun film to watch, but there will be a lot to certainly teach from. I know we’ve got work to do and we’ll use it in the right way.”

The Virginia coach wanted to play a quality team in this type of setting, the Cavaliers’ first true road game this season. Bennett didn’t imagine his team would melt into a puddle of goo before his very eyes.

Teaching moments indeed.

Memphis’ David Jones, who led all scorers with 26 points, seemed unstoppable as he continued on his roll against ranked teams.

Jones and some of his mates got shots against Virginia that the Pack-Line seldom surrenders. Some of that came as a result of Hardaway’s plotting.

“Yeah, we put a package in, and even though we only had a couple of days to prepare for them (Memphis knocked off No. 11 and previously unbeaten Clemson four days before), I know [Virginia] enough because I’ve watched them forever,” Hardaway said.

“I studied to see why they were so good at what they do and I put a package of plays together that I felt like would really help us get an advantage in certain situations. And it worked, and the guys executed it and we made shots and it made it harder for them.”

Defensively, Hardaway took pleasure in watching his defense disrupt Virginia’s offense, which seemed out of sync from early on, double-teaming the ball as often as possible, forcing the Cavaliers to drive.

After a Christmas break, Bennett will go back to the drawing board and challenge his players to learn from the loss. Along the way, he will be looking for warriors who won’t shrink when the pressure turns up.