Memphis Basketball: 3 reasons why the Tigers have been struggling as of late

2. The frontcourt has been underwhelming collectively in AAC play

It took a long time for it to come together but Memphis Basketball assembled a group of bigs that’s supposed to dominate the conference. Malcolm Dandridge elected to return while adding Temple transfer Nick Jordain and former Sun Belt Player of the Year center, Jordan Brown from Louisiana.

And when Brown was out for a month due to an “illness”, the Tigers landed Nae’Qwan Tomlin, a mid-year transfer pickup from Kansas State, who has averaged double figures off the bench in nine games. With all of this talent, there’s no reason why they’ve been losing the battle of the bigs in the AAC, including allowing 23 points and 16 rebounds from Yaxel Lendeborg in the loss to UAB.

Brown has since returned to the team, playing five minutes against UAB in the last game. It’s going to be a question as to where his minutes are going to come from since Dandridge has played well as of late. 

On paper, the Tigers have the edge over every other team inside in the AAC. And when you have a 20 ppg scorer like David Jones, a three-game losing skid shouldn’t be possible for them. But if they continue to lose individual matchups, expect more losses to occur.