Deep into the city of brotherly love, Coach Penny Hardaway and the Memphis Tigers rode for a monster Thursday night matchup against the Temple Owls. As expected, Temple announced that the Memphis game would be a whiteout for the Owl fans in attendance, going as far as placing t-shirts on every seat in The Liacouras Center as the 18th-ranked Memphis Tigers traveled into an angry Owls nest on Thursday night.

Coming into the game with the Owls of Temple, the 18th-ranked Memphis Tigers, they would receive the best shot Temple could throw at them. Temple raced out to an early lead over the Tigers, pushing Coach Hardaway and his team to bring in the first half by taking a 36-30 lead to the locker room. The six-point half-time lead came mainly from the Owls crashing the glass and outrebounding the Tigers 22-12. Temple came out and punched the Tigers in the mouth, and Coach Hardaway’s team had no answer in the first half for the physical style of play Temple brought to the gymnasium in the first half.

Memphis was lucky enough to keep it within six at the break, as Tyrese Hunter led the way in scoring for the Tigers with nine points.

As the curtains on the second half gave way, so did the extension of the Temple lead as the Owls raced to a 48-37 lead over the Tigers at the under-16 media timeout, with the rebounding difference expanding to 29-15 in favor of the Temple Owls. At the under-12 media timeout in the second half, Temple held a 52-40 lead over the Tigers. Memphis turned up the pressure in the next four minutes, cutting the Temple lead to 64-57 with 7:44 on the clock. Despite cutting into the lead, at the under-8 media timeout, Temple held on the rebounding category by a margin of 40-20. As the final media timeout rolled around, Temple held on to a 74-69 lead over the Tigers, creating do-or-die time for the Tigers.

Temple finished the night outrebounding Memphis 49-25, showing a lack of effort on the glass for the Tigers.

As it goes, digging a hole too deep to climb out of proved much for the Tigers on Thursday night as they fell victim to the Temple Owls. It was a terrible performance for Memphis that will hurt more in the long run than anything else. The good news is the good wins that Memphis has this season will outweigh the bad that happened tonight, but the pressure to produce wins in conference play will intensify as the Tigers can’t afford to lose another game in American Athletic play without a significant impact to seeding in the NCAA Tournament.

Memphis will return to action on Sunday with another road game. They travel to North Carolina to take on Charlotte.