Sophomore Alandise Harris scored 18 points for the Cougars, but could not match Chris Crawford and the Tigers, who left Hofheinz Pavilion with an 89-55 win on Saturday. | Joshua Siegel/The Daily Cougar
Saturday night, the Cougars were trounced 89-55 by Memphis at Hofheinz Pavilion.
After a five-game win streak, UH (9-8, 1-3 Conference USA) has dropped three straight.
“We didn’t play hard. We didn’t compete,” sophomore Alandise Harris said.
The Cougars came into the game averaging 75.3 points per game, but suffered from offensive inconsistency against the Tigers (12-5, 3-0).
“We didn’t execute on offense at all,” freshman TaShawn Thomas said. “We didn’t set good screens or communicate. Some people thought we were running one play, and then we would run another.
“The whole team wasn’t on the same page.”
Both teams encountered offensive struggles at the get-go, but the Tigers were able to right the ship and pull ahead early.
The Cougars trailed 41-30 at halftime and pulled within eight of the Tigers with 14:54 to go, but the Tigers responded with an 18-0 run.
“We brought it to eight in the second half, and then they put the accelerator down, and we did not respond at all,” head coach James Dickey said.
“I’m embarrassed and so disappointed that our guys did not compete better.”
The Tigers were able to get into the lane for easy buckets, outscoring the Cougars 48-24 on points in the paint.
The Tigers’ Chris Crawford scored a game-high 19 points on 7-11 shooting, including five 3-pointers. As a team, the Tigers shot 56 percent.
The Cougars shot 34 percent from the field, and 1-12 on three-point attempts. Harris scored 18 points, but it came on an inefficient 3-10 from the floor and 12-17 from the line. Junior Jonathan Simmons added 16 points on 7-12 shooting and grabbed five rebounds.
Simmons and senior Darian Thibodeaux, who have started every game for the Cougars this season, came off of the bench because they were late to a team meeting.
