The Memphis Tigers knew the right prescription after tasting defeat for the first time.
Second-ranked Memphis blitzed Tulsa early Wednesday night and shook off its loss to Tennessee with an 82-67 victory. The Tigers clinched a tie for the Conference USA regular-season title for the third straight year.
“We just needed to play another game and get it off our chests,” Robert Dozier said. “It’s behind us now. You can’t worry about it. It’s one game we lost. There’s a bigger tournament at the end of the season.”
That would not be the conference tournament, but the NCAAs, where the Tigers (27-1, 13-0) figure to be a top seed.
“I feel like we are a good team, a championship team,” said reserve Shawn Taggart, who had 12 points. “Every championship team, when they take a loss, they want to come out and prove a point and play hard. I feel like our bench showed we can score and we can produce on defense.”
The Tigers made sure they jumped out early against the Golden Hurricane.
Willie Kemp was 5-for-10 from the field, including 4-for-7 outside the 3-point arc, as five Tigers scored in double figures.
Doneal Mack matched Taggart’s 12 points, while Dozier added 11 points and eight rebounds. Antonio Anderson finished with 10 points, all in the first half as Memphis built a 43-19 lead at intermission.
Elsewhere, it was No. 6 Kansas 75, Iowa State 64; No. 7 Duke over Georgia Tech 71-58; No. 11 Georgetown beating St. John’s 64-52; and No. 16 Purdue beating Minnesota 65-53.
Also, Robert McKiver scored 52 points, the most by a Division I player this season, to lead Houston to a 95-67 victory over Southern Mississippi. McKiver’s total was the most for the Cougars since Elvin Hayes scored 55 against Southwestern on Feb. 12, 1966.
McKiver broke a Hofheinz Pavilion record of 44 points set by Larry Bird for Indiana State in a NIT game on March 9, 1977. McKiver shot 17-for-34 from the field, including 7-for-17 from 3-point range. He also hit 11 free throws.
No. 2 Memphis 82, Tulsa 67
Memphis’ reserves outscored Tulsa’s 43-11 in the game, led by Kemp and Taggart.
“I was really, really pleased,” Memphis coach John Calipari said. “To come off the game and the emotion that we came out of, and to hold (Tulsa to 19) points in the first half was tremendous. Of those, they got five in the first minute.
“It’s good to win just to get that other thing out of your system.”
No. 6 Kansas 75, Iowa State 64
Darrell Arthur had 18 points and 10 rebounds, Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush each added 15 points for host Kansas. The Jayhawks (25-3, 10-3 Big 12) led by 22 midway through the second half, but had to hold off the Cyclones (14-14, 4-9) down the stretch.
Wesley Johnson had 20 points and Jiri Hubalek added 14 for Iowa State, which has lost eight of its past 10 and appears headed for its second straight losing season.
Kansas has won six straight over Iowa State. With the loss, Cyclones second-year coach Greg McDermott is 0-9 against ranked opponents.
No. 7 Duke 71, Georgia Tech 58
Gerald Henderson and DeMarcus Nelson both scored 15 points and Duke moved into a first-place tie in the Atlantic Coast Conference with North Carolina.
Kyle Singler added 13 points and Greg Paulus had 11 to help the Blue Devils (24-3, 11-2) improve to 15-0 at Cameron Indoor Stadium this season.
Matt Causey and Gani Lawal had 10 points each to lead the Yellow Jackets, who lost their fifth straight.
No. 11 Georgetown 64, St. John’s 52
DaJuan Summers made five 3-pointers and scored 21 points for Georgetown (23-4, 13-3 Big East). Georgetown is 15-0 at home and holds a five-game winning streak against St. John’s.
Roy Hibbert scored 13 of his 17 points in the second half. Summers was 5-for-8 on 3-pointers, giving him a better mark from the outside than he had at point-blank range. He missed two dunks in the first half, including one on a fast break that bounced off the back of the rim into the courtside seats.
Anthony Mason Jr. scored 12 points and Justin Burrell had 10 for St. John’s.
No. 16 Purdue 65, Minnesota 53
E’Twaun Moore scored 22 points and Purdue grabbed a tie for the Big Ten lead. Robbie Hummel had 12 points and eight rebounds, and Keaton Grant added 11 points for Purdue (22-6, 13-2 Big Ten), which is tied with Wisconsin and Indiana for the conference lead.
Lawrence McKenzie led visiting Minnesota with 13 points. Dan Coleman had 10 points and 13 rebounds and Spencer Tollackson had 10 points in Minnesota’s second-lowest scoring game of the season.
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