The Memphis Tigers men's basketball team represents the University of Memphis in NCAA Division I men's college basketball. The Tigers currently compete in Conference USA, in which they have won six regular season and four conference tournament championships. The Tigers will leave Conference USA for the Big East in 2013. ESPN Research ranked the men's basketball program as the 14th most prestigious in modern college basketball,[2] and as of 2011, the Tigers have the 29th highest winning percentage in NCAA history. They play home games at FedExForum.

The predecessor of the University of Memphis, West Tennessee State Normal School, first fielded a basketball team in 1920. Zach Curlin began coaching the team in 1924. The Tigers joined the Mississippi Valley Conference in 1928. The team played its early home games at a local high school gym, a local YMCA, and in a room on campus called the "Normal Cage" which allowed only six inches from the court lines to the walls. In 1929, a $100,000 facility on campus named Memorial Gym became the Tigers' home.

Basketball is a team sport, the objective being to shoot a ball through a basket horizontally positioned to score points while following a set of rules. Usually, two teams of five players play on a marked rectangular court with a basket at each width end. Basketball is one of the world's most popular and widely viewed sports.

A regulation basketball hoop consists of a rim 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high mounted to a backboard. A team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket during regular play. A field goal scores two points for the shooting team if a player is touching or closer to the basket than the three-point line, and three points (known commonly as a 3 pointer or three) if the player is behind the three-point line. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time (overtime) may be issued when the game ends with a draw. The ball can be advanced on the court by bouncing it while walking or running (dribbling) or throwing (passing) it to a teammate. It is a violation to move without dribbling the ball (traveling), to carry it, or to double dribble (to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling).

The Memphis Tigers represent the University of Memphis in Division I of the NCAA. They are members of C-USA until 2013 when they will move to the Big East Conference.

When the Memphis State University first fielded a football team in the fall of 1912, no one had selected a nickname for the squad. Early references to the football team tabbed them only as the Blue and Gray Warriors.

After the final game of the 1914 season, there was a student parade. During this event, several University students shouted, "We fight like Tigers!" The nickname was born. As time passed, the nickname "Tigers" was increasingly used, particularly in campus publications, but did not catch on with the newspapers downtown. They continued to use "the Blue and Gray" when referring to the University.

Under Coach Lester Barnard in 1922, Memphis's football team gave a ring of truth to that old student yell about Tigers. The team adopted a motto - "Every Man a Tiger" - and went on to score 174 points while allowing its opponents just 29 points. The Tiger nickname continued on with students and alumni, eventually being adopted as the official nickname for the University of Memphis in 1939.

Josh Pastner (born September 26, 1977) is an American college basketball coach and the head coach of the Memphis Tigers. Pastner was a player on the 1997 Arizona Wildcats men's basketball national championship team, an assistant coach at the University of Arizona under Lute Olson and at the University of Memphis under John Calipari. Pastner has been praised for being a tireless recruiter as well as possessing a superior work ethic.

Pastner was born in Glen Dale, West Virginia in the state's northern panhandle. However, he grew up in Kingwood, in Houston, Texas. Pastner is the son of Hal Pastner, a high school/AAU coach and basketball promoter in the Houston area. Josh knew he wanted to be a coach since he was in the 5th grade. By the age of 13 he was publishing the Josh Pastner Scouting Report of local high school talent in the Houston area. At the age of 16, the Houston Hoops AAU squad was turned over to Pastner by his father, his first job as a head coach. While an AAU coach, Pastner coached future NBA players such as Emeka Okafor, T. J. Ford and Daniel Gibson.