Good signs today at the first practice post-Tennessee. It was very business-like, not a lot of cutting up or talking. Some guys were moving faster than I’ve seen in weeks. It confirms in my mind that losing a game was a good thing for Memphis. To win it all, you can’t be arrogant, can’t have attitudes, can’t feel like it’s OK to make mistakes. It was a much more grounded, much more attentive team, and we’ll see how hungry the Tigers are over the next two weeks leading up to the conference tournament.

Meanwhile, I asked John Calipari if he considered calling a timeout Saturday night during the game’s most important possession, which ended with Antonio Anderson missing a runner by about three feet to the left. Calipari said he thought about it but decided against it, primarily because he only had one timeout left and Tennessee is probably the best team in the country at defending inbounds plays. In other words, he could have used his last timeout to set up a final shot, but he didn’t want to have to get the ball back inbounds against Tennessee without having a timeout in his pocket. If Memphis can’t get the ball inbounds there, they don’t even get a shot to win the game. If he had two timeouts left, he would have been more likely to call timeout, but the Tigers had to burn a timeout when Derrick Rose didn’t curl when he was supposed to curl on an earlier inbounds play. Either way, when he saw Anderson driving the lane, he was very comfortable with the way it was developing. Anderson just lost control of the ball.