That’s about as stressful as it gets. Not for Memphis. For me. Games that start at 8:30 p.m. aren’t very good for writers. Especially overtime games. It wasn’t fun, but we make it happen at the CA. Please, enjoy reading your game story and Geoff Calkins column tomorrow. We worked hard to get it in the paper.

I’ll be honest. Six minutes into the second half, I had buried the Tigers. My game story was already written. It was a merciless rip job. Sure, the triangle-and-two defense that Tim Floyd claimed to have put in at 7 p.m. Tuesday night — and I don’t believe that for a second by the way — caused problems. But the bigger issue, from my vantage point, was the Tigers body language. They seemed disinterested. Shoulders were sagging. They didn’t look very enthused about being there. But I’ll give them a lot of credit for really locking down in the second half and finding a way to beat USC. Memphis’ defense had been pretty poor the last two games, but the Tigers did what they had to do.

Two guys who really stood out were Shawn Taggart and Robert Dozier. Both made really high-impact plays defensively late in the game. Antonio Anderson looked lost out there for most of the game, but he made a couple big-time layups down the stretch. I’ll have more thoughts in the morning before I head back home to Memphis.