No. 11 Tigers Run Win Streak To 10
Douglas-Roberts registers a game-high 23 points in 87-65 victory over UCF.
No. 11 Tigers Run Win Streak To 10
Jan. 31, 2007
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Coach John Calipari wants Memphis forward Joey Dorsey to be like Lawrence Taylor.
"Where every time you drive you're looking for number 56," he said.
The 6-foot-9 junior forward looked like it Wednesday night, scoring 22 points inside and grabbing nine rebounds as No. 11 Memphis routed UCF 87-65.
"What you saw today, a little bit of Lawrence Taylor," Calipari said. "But he hadn't played like this every night. This was his best game by far."
Chris Douglas-Roberts added 23 points and Memphis (18-3, 8-0 Conference USA) led from the tip in its 10th straight win.
The Tigers finally shrugged a three-game shooting slump, hitting 57 percent from the field after shooting less than 40 percent its past few outings. UCF made 50 percent, but turned the ball over 22 times to Memphis' 11.
Douglas-Roberts scored 15 in the first half, and had six points in a 1:23 second-half span on two acrobatic layups and a driving dunk in traffic. He finished 9-of-13 from the field and had four assists.
"That's about as well as my team can play," Calipari said.
Josh Peppers led the Golden Knights (15-6, 4-3) with 20 points, and no other UCF player cracked double figures. The loss broke UCF's 12-game home winning streak dating back to last season.
"We just got complacent, and I'm really not sure why," UCF guard Mike O'Donnell said. "We had some guys that should've stepped up today and they didn't."
Dorsey put in back-to-back misses for dunks within 30 seconds of one another to give Memphis a 66-46 advantage with just under 10 minutes left. The lead ballooned to 27 points on Willie Kemp's 3-pointer with about 6 1/2 minutes to go.
UCF didn't score in the game's first three minutes, and didn't get its second basket until 2 1/2 minutes after that. Down by 11, the Golden Knights mounted an 11-5 run to draw within five.
But Douglas-Roberts had four points on a 12-2 Memphis spurt in the last four minutes of the first half that put the Tigers up 42-27.
The 4,800-person advance sellout was UCF's first in school history, and Memphis was only the second Top 25 team to play the Golden Knights at home. The first was No. 25 Charleston in December 2002, the only game against a ranked opponent UCF has won in 17 all-time tries.
The win gives Memphis an 8-0 record in January, just the sixth time in school history the Tigers have completed the month unbeaten. Calipari did it at Memphis one other time, going 7-0 in the 2000-01 season.
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