After a pretty late night on Friday, I was curious how the Tigers would look at 9 a.m. for their first real practice. In a word: Wow.

Surely, every practice won’t be as good as Memphis’ Saturday morning session, but clearly Chris Douglas-Roberts was telling the truth when he said Friday night, “This is a business year.” The Tigers were sharp, focused and very much engaged throughout the two-plus hours they were on the court. Quick observations before I get to work on stories for tomorrow’s newspaper:

– Freshman point guard Derrick Rose gets better with every practice, and the margin of improvement from two weeks ago is scary.

–Though sophomore forward Pierre Niles still isn’t in the kind of shape he needs to be in, Saturday morning might have been the best practice of his career.

– Junior forward Robert Dozier is up to 222 pounds, and he’s not backing down from physical play. He’s making plays in traffic he wasn’t able to make last year.

– Freshman Jeff Robinson has beautiful arc on his jump shot, and when he gets in rhythm, he doesn’t hit much rim.

– Sophomore Willie Kemp rolled his right ankle during Memphis Madness. He tried to practice but had to quit after just a few minutes.

– Andre Allen went down with a little quad strain, but he got up after about 90 seconds and went right back to practice.