On the second to last weekend of the regular season, the 18th-ranked Memphis Tigers would travel into a hornets’ nest as they took the race for the AAC Championship on the road to Birmingham, where arch-rival UAB waited in the shadows for their chance at revenge over the Tigers.

Memphis took the first matchup with the Blazers in Memphis by a score of 100-77 back in late January.

Almost everybody expected the Tigers and Blazers to be an absolute rock fight in Sunday’s game.

What started in the first half as an instant classic between Memphis and UAB as one of the most physical basketball games of the season, with the Blazers taking a 42-36 lead to the locker room, delivered an instant classic in the second half.

The Tigers’ first half was a bit of bad basketball, defined by nine turnovers and an unreal number of foul troubles.

Dain Dainja picked up his 4th foul midway through the second half, giving the Tigers a bit of an uphill climb to overcome in the second half. With Dainja in foul trouble, Moussa Cisse gave the Tigers quality minutes of excellent defensive basketball while picking up four enormous points for the Tigers in the second half.

At the second-half’s under-16 media timeout, the Blazers held on to a 59-54 lead over the Tigers. At the under-12 media timeout of the second half, the Blazers had kept a five-point lead with a score of 65-60 over the Tigers. At the under-8 media timeout, the Tigers showed life with the UAB lead cut to 69-68, with PJ Haggerty at the line for two shots out of the timeout. As the game’s final media timeout rolled around, the Memphis Tigers had a 77-73 lead over UAB with 3:12 to play. Memphis would make four of their last five shots to pull away for an 88-81 victory over UAB on Sunday.

( Memphis Box Score)

PJ Haggerty led the Tigers on Sunday with 25 points, Colby Rogers scored 21, and Dain finished with 16.

Memphis will remain on the road on Tuesday night as they travel to UTSA to take on the Roadrunners before closing out the regular season on Friday night against South Florida.

Photo Credits- Memphis Basketball on X