Aug. 6, 2008
2008-09 Memphis Basketball Summer Preview in PDF Format 
10 (+1) "By The Numbers" Season Preview For 2008-09
1,035 (days)
Provided the Tigers don't play a Conference USA game before the new year, it will be 1,035 days since Memphis lost a league game when the calendar turns to Jan. 1, 2009. The last time Memphis fell to a C-USA foe was Mar. 2, 2006, when the Tigers dropped an 80-74 decision at UAB.
Memphis' C-USA regular season win streak stands at 33 straight entering 2008-09. The Tigers' overall C-USA win streak (including tournaments) is 42 straight. The Tigers have won three-straight C-USA regular season (13-1, 16-0, 16-0 records) and tournament titles.
1,000 (x2)
Antonio Anderson and Robert Dozier both will reach the 1,000-point milestone for their careers in 2008-09. Entering the year, Anderson has 897 points and Dozier 903 points. When the duo reaches the plateau, the Tiger 1,000-point club will grow to 45 players.
Also, when both reach the milestone, it will be the eighth time in Memphis history that two Tigers scored their 1,000th point in the same season. The last time it happened was the 2004-05 campaign when Rodney Carney and Anthony Rice did so. It will be the third time in the John Calipari era that this occurred as Marcus Moody and Kelly Wise did so in 2000-01.
408 (+5 wins)
John Calipari begins his 17th season as a collegiate head coach in 2008-09. Last year (Calipari's 16th), he joined Roy Williams as the only two coaches in NCAA Division I history to win 400 or more games in their first 16 seasons.
Well, Calipari enters 2008-09 already in the top five for most wins by an NCAA Division I coach is his first 17 years. Calipari is in the No. 5 spot with 408 wins, and needs only five victories to move into the No. 2 spot on that list.
234/.743
In the decade of the 2000s, Memphis is the fifth-winningest program in NCAA Division I. The Tigers have won 234 games this decade, and only trail Duke (261), Kansas (255), Florida (236) and Gonzaga (235) on that list.
In terms of winning percentage this decade, the Tigers are sixth on that list. Memphis' winning percentage is 74.3 and only trails Duke (.831), Kansas (.807), Gonzaga (.797), Florida (.761) and Utah State (.753).
219 (+2 wins)
John Calipari enters 2008-09 with the chance to become the Tigers' all-time winningest head coach. Calipari has 219 wins in his Tiger tenure, and is one shy of Larry Finch's 220 victories. Finch coached the Tigers from 1987-97.
133/126/104
The 2008-09 Tiger seniors -- Antonio Anderson, Robert Dozier and Chance McGrady -- will be looking to make NCAA and Memphis history in terms of wins in 2008-09. The trio enter the season with 104 victories, which is tied for the most wins for a three-year span in NCAA Division I history.
The first record the 2008-09 Tiger seniors will be shooting for is the Memphis record for wins in a four-year span. Joey Dorsey, the lone 2007-08 senior, holds that Tiger record with 126 wins from 2005-08. The 126 wins are the 10th-most wins in a four-year period in NCAA Division I history.
The next mark the Tiger seniors will be going for is the NCAA Division I mark for wins in a four-year period. That record is 133 wins from 1998-2001 by Duke.
100 (x4)
If he plays his usual steady floor game, Antonio Anderson will join an elite Tiger group in 2008-09. The senior has averaged 124 assists per season, and if he reaches the 100-dimes plateau this season, Anderson will be one of five Tigers to have 100 or more assists all four years. The others to have 100 or more assists all four years they wore the Blue and Gray were Alvin Wright, Andre Turner, Elliot Perry and Chris Garner.
If Anderson were to reach 500 assists (needs 129 in 2008-09), the Lynn, Mass., native would become one of four players in Memphis hoops history to have 1,000 points and 500 dimes. The other three who have pulled it off are Turner, Wright and Perry.
58 (in a row)
Memphis and UCLA enter 2008-09 having been ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll for 58-consecutive weeks, which is the current longest streak in the nation. The two schools also are the only two that have been ranked each week of the Associated Press poll for the last three years.
46.6/46.9/44.1
The Tigers return only 46.6 percent of its scoring for the 2008-09 campaign. Of its starters from 2007-08, Memphis returns only 30.1 percent of its scoring. On the rebounding front, the Tigers return 46.9 percent. The big loss up front is Joey Dorsey, whose 362 boards were 22.3 percent of the Tigers' rebounding. Memphis also returns only 44.1 percent of its assists.
Memphis was in this similar position in the summer of 2006. From their 33-4 Elite Eight team in 2005-06, the Tigers returned 56 percent of their scoring, 57 percent of rebounding and 59 percent of assists. The 2006-07 Tigers posted another 33-4 mark and advanced to a second-straight Elite Eight.
4, Part I
Memphis welcomes the No. 4 recruiting class to the Bluff City, according to Rivals.com. The Tigers' 2008 recruiting class includes Tyreke Evans, Angel Garcia, Roburt Sallie, Matt Simpkins and Wesley Witherspoon.
4, Part II
For the first time in modern Tiger basketball history (since WW II), a Tiger player will wear a different jersey number each of his four seasons. Chance McGrady is the player, and he wore No. 11 as a freshman, No. 55 as a sophomore, No. 31 as a junior and No. 14 as a senior.
