NCAA Basketball: UNC, Villanova, Arkansas and Memphis takeaways from Battle 4 Atlantis

2nd place – Memphis Tigers

Positive takeaway: David Jones has emerged as the go-to guy

Like with Arkansas, Memphis has a completely new roster filled with talented transfers who were scorers at their previous spots. And once star forward Deandre Williams wasn’t eligible to come back, it was interesting to see who the lead offensive weapon for them would be. After this week, it’s clear that Jones is the guy.

The St. John’s transfer is the lone Tiger to be in double figures in every game. He had a career-high 36 pts and 5 stls in the team’s win over Arkansas, their biggest to date. And Jones was the lone starter to have a decent game offensively against Villanova, scoring 13 pts on 6/12 shooting. If the Tigers can build off of him, the offense will round into shape.

Negative takeaway: Jordan Brown and his minutes has disappeared

I mentioned the departure of Williams in the frontcourt and that was supposed to mean that Brown, last season’s Sun Belt Player of the Year at Louisiana, would be the focal point inside. He even had 12 pts in the win over Missouri a couple of weeks ago. However, he did nothing in the past three games, scoring 10 pts combined on average of 11 mpg.

Brown still was starting but he’s effectively in a timeshare with Nick Jourdain, who clearly outplayed him against bigger competition. And with Jones playing more at the four in some smaller lineups, Memphis doesn’t need Brown as much. He’ll need to show that he’s worth getting minutes again or risk sliding down the rotation.