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Memphis rebounds with victory over Mississippi

Dec 9, 2006 - 8:47 PM MEMPHIS, Tennessee (Ticker) -- A little better shooting and some help from the opposition resulted in a rebound victory for Memphis.

Chris Douglas-Roberts scored 17 points and Jeremy Hunt sparked a strong performance from the Memphis bench as the 17th-ranked Tigers posted an 82-70 victory over Mississippi.

The Tigers (7-2) were coming off a lopsided 76-58 setback to Tennessee on Wednesday. Memphis shot only 29 percent (22-of-77) against the Volunteers and never recovered from a 43-22 deficit at the half.

Memphis struggled from the arc (5-of-20) and from the line (15-of-30) but shot 47 percent (31-of-66) overall and took advantage of some sloppy ball handling by Ole Miss.

"That was a good win," Memphis coach John Calipari said. "At times, I thought we were tremendous but we are still trying to find ourselves."

The Tigers scored 26 points off of 21 turnovers by the Rebels. Memphis was also boosted by 34 bench points, including 16 from Hunt.

Memphis led, 32-29, at the break but pulled away behind Douglas-Roberts, who scored 10 points in the first 10 minutes of the second half to help the Tigers build a 60-43 lead.

Clarence Sanders had 18 points and Todd Abernethy added 16 for Ole Miss (7-2), which never led and trailed by as many as 23 late in the second half.

"As I have said before, we have to be better defensively," Mississippi coach Andy Kennedy said. "In the second half, they stopped thinking and started attacking, which is what they do and they do it really well. As a result, we did not respond and they really started taking the action to us."

The win gave Memphis coach John Calipari his 100th home victory with the Tigers, but he was far from satisfied.

"We're not where we want to be yet and this team has a lot of growing up to do," Calipari said. "With the talent we had last year, in that Tennessee game a few days ago, we would have come out OK. Somebody would have just made plays. We know we don't have that kind of team. We just have to figure out how we play and what we do. We still have a good team."