A great season came to an end in Auburn Hills with an outstanding Michigan State team taking control in the second half. The Tigers finish the year 31-5.
Said Coach Pastner after the game, “We won 31 games. We left Conference USA winning 26 straight. This was a heckuva season. A great season,” Pastner said. “We reached two of our three goals — the regular-season championship and the conference tournament championship.
“Obviously we didn’t want to end like this, but, you know, I think we have a chance to be really, really good next year. We’ve got a great recruiting class (ranked No. 2 nationally) coming in. We’ve got a lot of our main rotation guys coming back. And you know what else? We’ll have some more opportunities to play the teams with this size (in a new conference).
I love my team. I wish we could have played better today. We needed to play a great game to win, and we couldn’t do that. I’ve had a great team, and my four seniors, have been the epitome of Memphis basketball seniors. Just representing us so well, and it’s been a joy every day to be with them.