Interesting weekend for future Tigers opponents. And by interesting, I mean terrible.

– What in the heck is going on in Cincinnati? Getting smoked at home by Belmont in your opener is horrendous. And please, don’t tell me Cincinnati doesn’t have talent. I love Belmont coach Rick Byrd, but an Atlantic Sun team going into a Big East arena and running all over Cincinnati is something that shouldn’t happen.

– Speaking of the Atlantic Sun, it was quite a week for that league. First, Gardner-Webb beats Kentucky at Rupp. Then Belmont scalps a Big East foe. Then, Mercer takes down USC and O.J. Mayo, 96-81. Don’t overreact to this one. Sure, Mayo took 27 shots (too many) and had 8 turnovers (way too many). But without Daniel Hackett and Davon Jefferson, who else was going to do it for USC? Tim Floyd will correct the defensive issues (Mercer shot 59.4 percent) before meeting Memphis on Dec. 4.

– Meanwhile, Oklahoma has some defensive issues of its own. Jeff Capel was apparently so mad, he changed clothes at halftime? I don’t think he learned that one from Coach K. Anyway, this will be a dangerous game for Memphis on Thursday. The Griffin brothers will be a handful. Taylor Griffin killed the Tigers last year in Maui (16 points, 10 rebounds). Now, he’s got a bigger, stronger, more talented version of himself in younger brother Blake Griffin to run with. Great.

– Georgetown was a slow-starting team last year, and it looks like much the same story this year.

– Very nice win for Tulane and Conference USA over Auburn on Friday night. Auburn isn’t very good, but these are the kinds of games C-USA needs to win.

– On the other hand, SMU threw up an embarrassing loss Saturday to Southern.

Senior forward Joey Dorsey, who has been out for two weeks with a right shoulder sprain, seems to be improving. He went full speed for both the morning and afternoon practices Saturday, including the live scrimmage Saturday night. Though the shoulder was clearly bothering him on Friday, he didn’t seem to be worrying about it too much Saturday. That doesn’t mean he’ll play for sure in Monday’s exhibition game against Christian Brothers, but he appears to be on track for Oklahoma on Thursday.

Memphis spent all of Saturday morning working on defense. The Tigers did a poor job of scrambling and closing out with hands up in their first two games, and it was time for coach John Calipari to take their defense to another level. Saturday evening was all about offense, going back to the breakdown drills which emphasize layups and transition opportunities.

Observations:

– In the scrimmage, the “Blue” team with Willie Kemp, Doneal Mack, Andre Allen, Jeff Robinson and Shawn Taggart/Pierre Niles was killing the first team. A lot of that had to do with Mack, who made six straight 3-pointers. Now, he needs to do that in a game.

– One of the reasons the “White” team struggled was that Chris Douglas-Roberts and Antonio Anderson seemed to be in a funk. CDR hasn’t made shots the last couple days, and that led to a few uncharacteristic mental errors. Anderson, who had six turnovers against Richmond, turned the ball over a bunch Saturday night. That’s very strange, since a typical game for Anderson last year was 6 or 7 assists with 0 or 1 turnover. Derrick Rose didn’t have his best practice either. Calipari was getting on him about sprinting the floor and doing too much extra ballhandling.

– Still no official word on lineup changes. I imagine a lot of that will depend on if Dorsey is healthy.