Past Blunders Haunt Memphis’ AAC Surge Despite Penny Hardaway’s Year-End Delight

Whatever you say about the current Memphis team, their huge win against UConn at Maui counts for something. It left Huskies coach Dan Hurley screaming on the sidelines, and while his anger may have been directed more at the refs, it was ultimately Penny Hardaway’s squad that won. The Tigers are now ending the year on a good note with another win over Ole Miss after losing to their State counterpart a week before. But the Memphis coach is being reminded of some failures from the last season to keep in mind.

In the 2023-24 season, the Memphis Tigers did not make the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2020-21. Hardaway took over as head coach in 2018 and even if he has just two appearances in six seasons, he was slowly building the team known for its defensive culture. But last year, it all fell apart. On The Field of 68: After Dark, that’s exactly what host Rob Dauster warns against. “As long as they don’t do something stupid, which they’re capable of doing because we saw them do it last year, I think that they’re gonna be fine.”

The AAC is not exactly known as the toughest conference out there, so last year’s Tigers team was on track as one of the best in the conference. They were ranked No. 10 in the AP Top 25 poll and boasted stars like David Jones, Jahvon Quinerly, and Nae’Qwan Tomlin. A dream scenario, right? Except things were a little more ugly behind-the-scenes as Hardaway later revealed, because some players did not get along with each other well. Whatever you say about off-the-court chemistry not needing to translate on the court, some of it always leaks in.

Some didn’t buy into the coach’s strategies, Jordan Brown quit the team in December, but then Haradway brought him back in January, a move that did not sit well with most of his team. The end result? A 7-8 collapse in Memphis’ last 15 games, which led the head coach to confess on his radio show’s debut, “It just showed me that I needed to learn so much more. To not make the NCAA Tournament last year, man, it was some dark days for me.”

But all that is past now, as Hardaway seems to have learned his lesson. Dauster believes their wins this season should not be discredited, “This win, what it does more than anything else is, it puts them in a position where you might be able to get yourself a seed where you can do something more than like win a game.”

Their total of three Quad 1 victories now – UConn, Michigan (ranked by KenPom as Memphis’ best win of the season), and now Ole Miss – makes Dauster declare, “I think you look at that and you kinda say, okay this could be a team that could get like a three or four seed. I don’t think that’s out of the question right now. And when you’re ranked there, you actually got a chance to make some noise.”

Citing players like Tyrese Hunter, Colby Rogers, and PJ Haggerty, Dauster says this team looks like it was made for March. For coach Hardaway though, the original plan of improvement was a little different.

Penny Hardaway realized where he “faltered” the most

After the hard-hitting losses last season and going home early, a tough wake-up call awaited Penny Hardaway as he realized that only players that fit in with each other could help the whole team win. Talent was required but character was even more important. And once he had a team, he needed to be a people manager too, not just someone who dealt with the basketball side of things.

“The organizational side of it is where I’ve faltered,” Hardaway said on his radio show. “No other coach in the country’s outworked me in six years. Nobody’s gonna stay up watching more film. Nobody’s gonna out X-and-O me or anything like that. It was the other side of it. It was the side of just running the program. That’s something I had to get better with, and I’ve gotten better with it.”

Another major thing he had to prioritize? If he’s the head honcho, he could only have players who listened to him and agreed with his strategy. He wanted a more defense-focused team, so that was what he would build. And it seems to be working so far.