#1 Memphis Tigers against #2 Tennessee Volunteers you can’t ask for a better Saturday match up than this! Besides watching Duke taking on North Carolina this may start becoming the second best instate rivalry in sports. There aren’t many games during the NCAA season that get me too excited but for some reason I can’t wait for Saturday to get here. I guess most of it is because I really don’t know how Memphis will play against a proven team like Tennessee. Its not necessarily Memphis’s fault that there in a weak Conference USA but I don’t think there is much argument that they play some what of a cookie cutter schedule. My biggest concern is if they can rise to the occasion and play like the number one team in the nation, or will the more proven Tennessee Volunteers team be too much for them to handle.
The Volunteers have been playing lights out basketball for a majority of the season. They consistently play a hard schedule in a decent SEC basketball conference which should help them be prepared for whatever Memphis throws their way. Experience is what Tennessee has in their favor going into this match up and they have the leadership of senior guard Chris Lofton to lean on.
We can sit around a table and argue all day and night on which team is going to win this game come Saturday in Memphis but we will never end up agreeing on much. History doesn’t lie when it comes to past match ups between teams like this in the past. The team with more experience and leadership wins a majority of games and in this instance I’m leading towards the team that has the experience, leadership...they have been here before. You guessed it I have to lean towards the Volunteers in the match up but trust me I wouldn’t be tuning into this game Saturday if there wasn’t a piece of me that thought Derrick Rose wasn’t going to go lights out and lead Memphis to victory. The Tiger’s without a doubt have an offense that can answer Tennessee’s high power attack.
Let the smack talk begin all across the country but there is one thing that we all can agree on in this game, talk is cheap and this game will be settled on the court. If this game lives up to the hype we hopefully will be watching a game that comes down to a last second shot. The big question will be, who is taking that shot? Derrick Rose? Chris Lofton? This is what #1 vs. #2 is all about and for college basketball fans it doesn’t get much better than that!
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