Didn’t see that coming. I thought the Tigers would play better, but UTEP came in with a nice plan and the Tigers could not hit a thing. Forget about the free throws; 1-for-17 from the 3-point line will get you beat most of the time, especially with as many wide open shots as Memphis had. Several things to talk about from this game.

– To be in position to beat Memphis, you have to do a lot of things right. But even if you do everything right, it’s hard to account for the ability of CDR and Derrick Rose to score one-on-one when they have to. If you want to beat the Tigers, you better bury them because CDR and D-Rose are better than whoever else the other team has, and they’ll score when they have to.

– Stefon Jackson had a great game, but he choked in crunch time. He missed a couple layups late in the game, and he missed a free throw under a minute left that was huge.

– Tigers didn’t play with a lot of basketball IQ at times. End of the first half was a great example. Tigers have a five-point lead and are trying to hold for the last shot. They get no ball movement, and Andre Allen jacks up a terrible 3-pointer. Then, Joey Dorsey fouls trying to go for the rebound when there is no rebound to get because the clock is going to run out. So he gives UTEP a shot at free throws with .5 seconds left.

– Speaking of Allen, his play was representative of how much the bench struggled Saturday. Frankly, the only guy off the bench who really performed his role well was Jeff Robinson in the first half (even though he missed three free throws). I was surprised he didn’t get back in after that. Once again, Willie Kemp had a rash of errors in a short span of time and didn’t get much PT.

– As I talked about in the pregame blog, Ramalho is a hack. He was flopping around all day long, and it was disgraceful. Whatever he does, though, he sure makes Dorsey play poorly.

– Aside from Kevin Mathis, I had no idea who the other two officials were. That’s never a good thing. A lot of solid officials work Tiger games throughout the course of the season, but Saturday was a different story. The other two guys were definitely out of their depth.

– Tigers aren’t going to win by 20 or 30 every game. I found it quite refreshing to have some drama, and it was educational for the team to see how different players would react to it.