(James Bilowus)
A win on the road has been hard to come by for SMU this season, but a win against Memphis has been impossible for the rest of Conference USA. The Mustangs will look to break Memphis’ perfect conference record Saturday morning in front of a national audience.
SMU has played its last three games without Derrick Roberts due to an injured knee. In those three games the Mustangs are 2-1 and playing better each game. But against Memphis (8-0 C-USA), SMU will need anything and everything they have.
In Robert’s absence, Brian Epps and Donatas Rackauskas have come up strong off the bench.
Epps scored just two points in the first game, but in the past two he has stepped up and scored 14 against Tulsa and UAB.
Rackauskas played his best game in the four-point loss to Tulsa, scoring 14 points in 15 minutes with a late three-point shot. Rackauskas only scored four points combined in the other two games.
Ike Ofoegbu continues to anchor the team. Ofoegbu leads the team in points per game with 12.8 and averaged 16 in the last three games. After the win against Tulane, Ofoegbu admitted that he needs to begin seeing himself as a go-to player.
In Memphis’ eight conference games they’ve outscored their opponents by an average of 15.3 points per game. The Mustangs, on the other hand, have been outscored by 27 total points in seven C-USA games.
Turnovers have plagued SMU all season long, but the Mustangs have begun to see those numbers decrease. In the first 14 games of the season, SMU averaged 17.7 turnovers a game, but in the seven C-USA games that number has dropped slightly to 16.7. The 13 turnovers on Wednesday was the second lowest number the Mustangs have had in conference play, but that statistic has also risen as high as 24 against UTEP, a game the Mustangs lost in the final seconds.
Surprisingly SMU, has averaged more turnovers in its 13 wins than in its eight losses. But games against Paul Quinn College and Prairie View A&M have skewed those numbers slightly.
The Mustangs have stepped up their game after starting the conference season 0-4. They’ll need to play at a new level against No. 11 Memphis on Saturday at 11 a.m. in the FedEx Forum on ESPN 2.
Derrick Roberts has been out of the Mustang lineup for the last three games. Roberts injured his knee two weeks ago.
