Memphis basketball snapped its four-game losing-streak on Saturday afternoon against Wichita State, and coach Penny Hardaway noticed something that spurred the win — a small-ball lineup that got the Tigers (16-6, 5-4 AAC) back into the game and ultimately helped them grind out the victory.

Hardaway, speaking on his radio show Monday night, said he started using bigger lineups after Caleb Mills was lost for the season on Jan. 4. But he closed with a smaller lineup down the stretch against the Shockers.

"Since Caleb had gone out, we've been going a lot bigger," Hardaway said. "And our league is a small league, except for a couple of teams like Wichita, maybe UAB. So it's small ball vs. our bigs. And sometimes it becomes a problem. So going to a small-ball lineup to finish the game made sense to us, and the group that was out there brought it home."

That lineup — Jahvon Quinerly, David Jones, Jaykwon Walton, Nicholas Jourdain and Nae'Qwan Tomlin — played almost exclusively down the stretch in the win. They erased the Shockers' 14-point lead with 7:55 to go and eked out the 65-63 win thanks to Jones' jumper with two seconds remaining.

"With that one group, we finally found five guys that said, 'Hey, we're not letting anybody drive around us, we're not going to let anything happen easily. And on the other end we're going to share the ball,' " Hardaway said. "What also happened on the offensive end, the ball started moving much faster and it made it harder for us to guard."

Hardaway used 12 players and started with Quinerly, Walton, Jones, Tomlin and Malcolm Dandridge. He had inserted Jonathan Pierre into the starting lineup for Wednesday's loss to Rice, but then went back to Quinerly against Wichita State.

Quinerly started the game 0-for-12 from the field before hitting a 3-pointer with 44 seconds remaining that gave Memphis its first lead of the game. He also had eight assists and six rebounds.

The Alabama transfer talked earlier on the radio show and detailed his recruitment process that ultimately led him to Memphis for his final year of college basketball. He said he believes the Tigers turned a corner with Saturday's win.

"When we play like that, there's not a lot of teams in the country I feel like that can beat us," Quinerly said.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: This is what Penny Hardaway said helped Memphis basketball end skid