COLUMBUS, Ohio — It turns out that Josh Pastner’s extended postgame session with Memphis after its loss to Georgetown at Verizon Center was just the beginning. Following the Hoyas’ second win over the Tigers in as many months back in December, the brash, 34-year-old coach brought his team back to the locker room, closed the door and didn’t emerge for more than 90 minutes.
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“We just had a team meeting and needed to air a few things out,” Pastner said then. His team responded, winning its next six games after a 6-5 start.
But when Memphis dropped a 60-58 decision to UTEP in February, Pastner took even more dramatic steps.
“I took the names off the back of the jerseys,” he said. “I locked them out of the locker room. I stopped feeding them hot meals, gave them a ham-and-turkey on white bread and bag of chips, wouldn’t give them anything with the name of Memphis on their practice gear — anything — because I wanted them to understand … that game is not acceptable.”
The unorthodox approach again got the desired result. In fact, the Tigers have done one better than after the Georgetown loss, winning seven in a row entering the NCAA tournament. After clinching the Conference USA regular-season title, Pastner felt Memphis had finally turned itself around.
“I go, ‘So you can get back in the locker room,’?” Pastner said. “[The players said,] ‘No, no, no, we just want a hot meal, Coach.’ … I think they understood how fortunate it was to have meals like that.”
– Craig Stouffer
