Road win for @SMUBasketball last night as they got a 69-62 win over Memphis
WATCH: https://t.co/zEG3LLzDtF pic.twitter.com/voXlw32qSa
— American MBB (@American_MBB) February 26, 2016
The SMU Men’s Basketball team defeated Memphis on the road 69-62 Thursday night, improving their overall and conference records to 23-4 and 11-4 respectively. With the win over Memphis, SMU moves into a tie with Temple for first place in conference standings with only three games left.
The first half of the game largely consisted of the teams trading small leads back and forth. The largest lead of the first half was only six points, as SMU led 27-21 with just over four minutes left courtesy of a Ben Moore slam dunk.
The second half had a similar narrative as the first, as the 20 minutes of play featured each team trying to edge past the other and maintain their lead. The turning point for the Mustangs appeared to be at the six-minute mark: down one point, looking for a permanent shift in momentum, Shake Milton drained a three pointer to give SMU a 59-57 lead going into the final stretch of the game. SMU didn’t give up the lead for the rest of the game following Milton’s free throw. Through stout defense and effectively sharing the ball in the final six minutes, SMU solidified their lead and won the game.
SMU outshot Memphis, posting noticeably higher field goal and three-point percentages, while also outscoring Memphis in the paint 42-22. Furthermore, SMU scored 18 second chance points, while Memphis only managed five.
On defense, SMU outrebounded Memphis 40-28. Under Head Coach Larry Brown, SMU boasts an impressive 77-18 record when outrebounding opponents, and have outrebounded opponents in 21 of 27 games this season.
Sterling Brown was the Mustang’s leading scorer, putting up 14 points and 7 rebounds, his 16th game this season scoring more than 10 points. Nic Moore and Markus Kennedy each added 12 points. Moore, who also had six assists, moved into second all time for number of assists by an SMU player, with 494 over the course of his career.
SMU returns to Moody Coliseum to host Tulane Sunday, Feb. 28 at 2 p.m. as they hope to claim sole possession of first place in the AAC.
