Nov. 12, 2009

Complete Game Notes in PDF Format

Reminder: Fans can still support the University of Memphis Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) by bringing non-perishable or canned goods as part of the C-USA Changing Lives Competition. All goods collected at the main entrance of FedExForum will go to the Mid-South Food Bank and will help the Tigers in a competition among C-USA schools to see who can raise the most donations for their respective communities.

Fans can also bring winter jackets to donate to the softball team's drive benefiting the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis. All quality winter coats for kids, adults and infants will benefit folks in Memphis who need a good winter coat.

All the summer workouts, individual workouts, pre-season camps, scrimmages and exhibition games have led up to this -- the regular season opener. The University of Memphis women's basketball team will tip it up, counting for the overall record this time, against 2008-09 WNIT quarterfinalists Indiana, Friday at 5 p.m. at FedExForum.

It will be the season opener for both teams and will be an opportunity for two coaches in rebuilding processes to gauge where their respective clubs are after the pre-season.

Indiana comes in to the game following a 21-11 season last year and a 2-0 mark in exhibition play, downing Lambuth, an NAIA program from here in Tennessee, 108-54, and Grand Valley State, the No. 13 ranked team in NCAA Division II, 80-70.

Senior guard Jamie Braun was a second-team, All-Big 10 honoree last season. The lone senior on the squad, Braun will be looking for scoring help this year, and if the two exhibition games are any sign, she may have found it from sophomore guard Jori Davis. Davis averaged 22 points in the first two exhibition games, adding 5.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals. Against Lambuth, she was 9-for-13 from the field, and was not far off that with a 9-for-14 mark against Grand Valley St. Down low, the Tigers will have their hands full with junior forward Hope Elam and sophomore Sasha Chaplin. Elam averaged 17 points and nine rebounds over the two exhibition games, while Chaplin, at 6-3, averaged 12 points and eight rebounds, adding a combined five blocks and six steals in two games.

The battle of the boards will be important Friday night. When Indiana easily dominated the boards against Lambuth, 54-31, the score reflected it. But Grand Valley State actually out-rebounded the Hoosiers, 45-34, even with Indiana shooting 47.5 percent from the field in that game. The final margin was just 10 points in IU's favor and Grand Valley shot just 28.6 percent in the opening 20 minutes in Bloomington. Memphis also struggled on the boards, getting out-rebounded 46-38 against the Houston Jaguars. Settling the early nerves and getting on the glass will be key for both programs Friday night.

Memphis will also be looking for scoring help beyond Brittany Carter. Carter scored 25 points in the Tigers' lone exhibition game, but despite scoring from eight teammates, none scored double-digit points.

Memphis also is looking for better performances from beyond the arc and from the free-throw line. The Tigers were 8-for-15 from the stripe in the opening half, and were just 2-for-16 from beyond the arc for the game. Memphis was a bit better in the second half from the free-throw line, shooting 75.0 percent, but earning just eight trips, with five of those second half trips coming from Carter.

The Series History
This is just the second-ever meeting between the Tigers and Indiana. Indiana leads the overall series, 1-0, after defeating then-Memphis State, 71-69, in the 1983-84 season. This is the first time Memphis has faced a Big 10 team in a while. The last meeting between the Tigers and a Big 10 foe was in the WNIT tournament when Memphis went on the road to play at Wisconsin, falling 92-73 in Tamika Whitmore's final game as a Tiger in the 1997-98 season.

Team Captains Voted In
One newcomer and the two returning juniors were voted team captains in a team vote earlier this week. Juniors Savannah Ellis and Alex Winchell were each voted a team captain, while Brittany Carter, a redshirt sophomore who sat out last season after transferring from Georgia, was voted a third team captain. That trio will handle the pre-game duties in the circle for the Tigers.

All New Faces
When Tiger head coach Melissa McFerrin looks down the bench, she might need a roster to keep everyone straight. In her second year at Memphis, she has just three players returning who suited up last season (juniors Savannah Ellis and Alex Winchell and sophomore Ramses Lonlack). Three additional Tigers were in the practice gym last year, but were not able to suit up. Brittany Carter, a transfer from the University of Georgia, sat out last year per NCAA transfer rules. Freshman guard Christine Lesane had signed with McFerrin in the summer of 2008, expecting to play in the 2008-09 season, but she was never cleared by the NCAA until there were single digit games remaining in the season, so the decision was made to redshirt Lesane. And as McFerrin likes to say, she coached LaToya Bullard for about 20 minutes in 2008-09 before the then redshirt junior decided to undergo back surgery, costing the returning point guard the entire season. In all, Memphis returns just 36 percent of its offense from last year and 35 percent of its rebounding for this season.

Transfers Finding a New Home, Or Returning Home
While McFerrin and her staff had success out recruiting in the prep ranks, inking Massachusetts' all-time leading prep scorer in freshman point guard Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir and two solid youngsters in Nicole Dickson out of Greeneville, Tenn., and Chatia Kelsey from Harvest, Ala., the staff did look to transfers and the junior college ranks to add a total of 10 new faces this season.

From the junior college ranks, the staff added Taylor Mumphrey, a lanky, 6-3 post with the wing span to offset her slight build in the paint. The Tigers then had to look no further than across town to find the second JC transfer, getting Starkitsha Luellen-Higgins from Southwest Tennessee Community College. Luellen-Higgins helped the Saluqis to a 51-3 record in her two seasons there and had initially signed with Arkansas for the 2008-09 season. But she instead sat out at Southwest, then signed with her hometown Tigers.

Around the time the Tigers landed one hometown product, they quickly grabbed a second one when guard Mary Jackson decided to transfer back to her hometown Tigers. A 5-11 guard with tons of athleticism, Jackson spent time in the starting line-up at the University of Louisville, helping the Cardinals to the national championship game, before deciding to transfer home.

Another four-year college transfer was following a path Brittany Carter established the previous year. Jasmine Lee decided to follow her college roommate from her freshman season to the University of Memphis following her sophomore season, reuniting the two-some in practice, but not on the floor until Lee sits out her NCAA-mandated transfer period.

Another player sitting out the upcoming season will be freshman point guard Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir. The Springfield, Mass., native drew a lot of pre-season attention for breaking Rebecca Lobo's high school scoring record, for the fact that she played covered in accordance with her Muslim faith, and for the fact that she was invited to dine at the White House during Ramadan with President Obama. But just days before the full team practices began, Abdul-Qaadir tore her ACL in a pick-up game, undergoing surgery and losing this season. She will have four years of eligibility beginning next season.

A Busy and Tough Start to the Regular Season
This year, McFerrin had an opportunity to do more scheduling and she ramped it up a bit for her young Tiger team. Rather than face an easy exhibition game, she choose an exhibition team made up of NCAA Division I all-conference players called the Houston Jaguars. Then for the regular season, the Tigers will face two WNIT teams in just three days, hosting Indiana Friday night, then hosting Murray State, a 23-9 squad from last season, on Sunday. And it doesn't get any easier on the road, as the Tigers will venture to McFerrin's alma mater, Missouri, Wednesday, for a non-conference road opener -- three games in a six day stretch and all three teams combined for a 57-47 record last year.

Juniors Already in the Career Record Books
Memphis might not return a lot of offense and rebounding from last season, but juniors Alex Winchell and Savannah Ellis are doing their part to fix that.
Winchell already ranks in the Memphis top 100 in three-point field goals made (77) and attempted (243), while Ellis ranks in the career top 10 with 55 blocked shots. Ellis needs just five more blocks to become just the fifth player in Tiger history to have 60 or more career blocked shots.

Don't Forget About `Toya
Redshirt senior LaToya Bullard is also in the Tiger record books, which is saying something given that she has been able to play just one semester of basketball for Memphis. In the spring semester of 2007-08, Bullard handed out 127 assists in just 22 games. That 5.8 apg average currently ranks second in Tiger career history.

Road Warriors
Memphis was a team that found some success on the road last season, picking up five of their 12 wins away from Memphis. Maybe the team needs to convince itself that FedExForum is really a road game, as the Tigers are still winless in the NBA facility in eight tries.

		Tiger Results in FedExForum

		12/29/05	vs. #18 Georgia		L, 97-44

		12/3/06		vs. UT Martin		L, 69-60

		2/7/06		vs. Tulane		L, 77-61

		1/4/07		vs. Toledo		L, 71-68 (ot)
		1/27/08		vs. UAB *		L, 72-66
		12/3/08		vs. Arkansas		L, 76-69
		12/11/08	vs. South Alabama	L, 66-49
		1/29/09		vs. UTEP *		L, 73-53

Effort, Thy Name is Ramses Lonlack
Talk with Tiger head coach Melissa McFerrin for any amount of time and she will tell you that playing in her system is hard. It is not run-and-gun basketball, it is up-tempo, circle-to-circle and is an effort-based system. Of all the players on her roster last year, McFerrin relied the heaviest on former captain Ashley Thornton and then-freshman Ramses Lonlack for effort plays Lonlack, just a true freshman last season, responded with three career double-double games, ranked third on the team in rebounding and scoring and was one of just two players (Thornton was the other) to play and start in all 30 games. In fact, Lonlack's 998 minutes played last season was the most minutes ever played by a Tiger freshman and the fifth-highest total of minutes played by any Tiger. She ranked sixth in Conference USA with 33.2 minutes a game and was seventh in the league with 2.17 steals a night.

Against Mississippi State, a WNIT team last year, Lonlack played the entire 40 minutes of the game. McFerrin is hoping the addition of freshman guard Chatia Kelsey will prevent Lonlack from being on the floor that long, as Lonlack was tired by the end of the season. Kelsey, like Lonlack, is a high-energy defender and should give Lonlack some rest.

Tigers in Season Openers
Memphis is hoping to repeat its start to last season. Last year, the Tigers lost their exhibition game, then bounced back with a win over Northern Arizona to improve to 19-16 all-time in season openers.

Rebuilding
Memphis capped the non-conference schedule last season with a 7-6 mark that included a rare win at Tennessee Tech to push the Tigers' mark over .500 at the end of the non-conference slate. That may not seem like much, but until last year, Memphis had not finished the non-conference part of the schedule with a mark over .500 since 2004-05.

Tigers Ink Second Ranked Recruiting Class
After signing the No. 60 ranked recruiting class last season, Memphis has followed it up with the No. 47 ranked recruiting class this season. Mary Jackson and Jasmine Lee both count in next year's recruiting class because of transfer rules, but the Tigers added a left-handed post player from Mesquite, Texas, on the first day of the early signing period with the addition of Sharee "KK" Harvey. Freshman point guard Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir is not included in that ranking from the Collegiate Girls Basketball Report yet.

How's an 80 Percent Improvement?
The hiring of Melissa McFerrin stirred the excitement level of Tiger fans. From the 2007-08 to the 2008-09 season, there was an over 80 percent increase in game attendance at the University of Memphis, including three FedExForum games and a full slate of Elma Roane Fieldhouse contests.

About Our Opponents:
Here is a look at what are our opponents (2008-09 records in brackets) are up to:
Indiana (21-11): Opens season at Memphis, Friday.
Murray State (23-9): Opens season at Alabama A&M, Friday.
Missouri (13-17): Hosts Northern Iowa, Sunday.
UT Martin (2-27): Opens new head coach Kevin McMillian's career Wednesday against Belmont.
Sacramento State (9-21): Opens new head coach Jamie Craighead's career with a home game against Cal State-Fullerton, Friday.
Eastern Washington (10-19): Opens the season at Portland, Saturday.
Florida International (6-24): Plays at N.C. State, Friday.
South Alabama (21-11): Opens the season at Southern Miss, Saturday.
Ole Miss (18-15): Opens against Southeast Louisiana, Friday afternoon at 3:30.
Northwestern State (18-13): Opens against Arkansas-Monticello, Friday.
Louisiana Tech (21-13): Hosts Centenary College, Friday.
Jackson State (8-20): Hosts Tennessee State, Saturday.
Saint Louis (12-18): Hosts Southern Illinois, Friday.
Tulsa (7-22): Hosts UMKC, Tuesday.
SMU (20-12): Hosts Loyola Marymount, Friday.
UCF (17-17): Opens at Middle Tennessee, Sunday.
Southern Miss (20-12): Hosts South Alabama, Saturday.
Rice (7-23): Plays at UT-Arlington, Friday.
Marshall (17-15): Hosts Appalachian State, Friday.
East Carolina (18-13): Hosts Charlotte, Friday.
UAB (10-20): Hosts Alcorn State, Friday, at noon.
Houston (19-10): Opens at Gardner-Webb, Friday.
Tulane (18-14): Hosts UL-Monroe, Friday.
UTEP (18-12): Opens at Florida Gulf Coast, Friday.