Weekend practice update
Posted by Dan Wolken
Senior forward Joey Dorsey, who has been out for two weeks with a right shoulder sprain, seems to be improving. He went full speed for both the morning and afternoon practices Saturday, including the live scrimmage Saturday night. Though the shoulder was clearly bothering him on Friday, he didn’t seem to be worrying about it too much Saturday. That doesn’t mean he’ll play for sure in Monday’s exhibition game against Christian Brothers, but he appears to be on track for Oklahoma on Thursday.
Memphis spent all of Saturday morning working on defense. The Tigers did a poor job of scrambling and closing out with hands up in their first two games, and it was time for coach John Calipari to take their defense to another level. Saturday evening was all about offense, going back to the breakdown drills which emphasize layups and transition opportunities.
Observations:
– In the scrimmage, the “Blue” team with Willie Kemp, Doneal Mack, Andre Allen, Jeff Robinson and Shawn Taggart/Pierre Niles was killing the first team. A lot of that had to do with Mack, who made six straight 3-pointers. Now, he needs to do that in a game.
– One of the reasons the “White” team struggled was that Chris Douglas-Roberts and Antonio Anderson seemed to be in a funk. CDR hasn’t made shots the last couple days, and that led to a few uncharacteristic mental errors. Anderson, who had six turnovers against Richmond, turned the ball over a bunch Saturday night. That’s very strange, since a typical game for Anderson last year was 6 or 7 assists with 0 or 1 turnover. Derrick Rose didn’t have his best practice either. Calipari was getting on him about sprinting the floor and doing too much extra ballhandling.
– Still no official word on lineup changes. I imagine a lot of that will depend on if Dorsey is healthy.
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