Having missed out on a berth in the NCAA tournament, the Memphis Tigers will join 15 other teams for a version of the National Invitation Tournament. All games will be played at a pair of arenas in metro Dallas.
It wasn’t supposed to go like this. When Penny Hardaway met a throng of boosters and media at the brand-new Laurie-Walton Center on March 20, 2018, he did not mention a four-year plan. There was no three-year runway toward contention for championships, be they conference or, ahem, national. “People are telling me to be patient,” said Hardaway three years ago. “But I’m not built that way. I’m not wired that way. I’ll go for it all or none at all.”
These are wacky times, and that goes well beyond the world of college basketball. But the history books will note that Hardaway — a certifiable hardwood legend in these parts — is the first Tiger coach to end three consecutive seasons without an NCAA tournament appearance since Wayne Yates, way back in the late 1970s (1977-79 to be exact). Sure, a pandemic is in the mix. There was no NCAA tournament in 2020. (Hardaway’s second team would not have made the Big Dance, not without winning the American Athletic Conference tournament, which was also cancelled.) But three years without March Madness in Memphis, Tennessee? On top of the four Madness-free years that preceded Hardaway’s arrival? It’s the longest drought for this proud program since a ten-year dry spell that ended with the Final Four run of 1973. Ouch.
U of M Athletics / Joe Murphy
All-conference swingman Landers Nolley II.
The Tigers played the Houston Cougars — the number-two seed in the NCAA tournament’s Midwest quadrant — to the buzzer twice in the span of six days this month. The notion that a tournament bracket can be filled with 68 better teams is ludicrous. But it’s never about what your team did when your “bubble” status bursts. It’s what your team didn’t do.
The Tigers didn’t beat a “Quad 1” team this season, a team from the upper tier of overall rankings as determined by strength of schedule and location of games. This is problematic for a team that doesn’t play in a “Power 5” league in a season the AAC didn’t exactly stuff the Top-25 rankings. Memphis only had two Power-5 opponents on its schedule. The Ole Miss game was cancelled due to positive COVID results in the Rebel program, and the Tigers lost to Auburn.
The Tigers didn’t get to play eight games — eight games — because of the pandemic. Four were cancelled because of positive tests in their opponent’s camp and four were cancelled because of positive tests in the Memphis program (including games against both AAC tournament finalists, home games with Cincinnati and Houston). Five or six more wins would have added some shine to the Tigers’ 16-8 record. Based on what we saw in Texas (twice), a win over the Cougars at FedExForum would not be a stretch. A second win over Wichita State (Memphis beat the AAC regular-season champs by 20 points in January) would have captured the right kind of attention.
Consider Boogie Ellis the personification of the Tigers’ near-miss this season. The sophomore guard tied the first Houston game with a three-pointer inside the game’s final 10 seconds, only to watch the Cougars’ Tramon Mark heave in a bank shot from 30 feet as time expired. Last Saturday, Ellis scored 27 points, his long-distance marksmanship fueling the Tigers’ second-half comeback from 12 points down. But Ellis missed six of ten free throws, vanishing points that could have made the difference in another game decided in the final minute of play.
“It’s hard to accept,” said a disconsolate Hardaway after the AAC semifinal loss. “Having the game won, knowing what’s at stake, and not being able to pull it through. We had a chance to knock them out a few times, and just couldn’t.” Hardaway acknowledged an uneven start to his team’s season, one that didn’t include transfer DeAndre Williams for the first seven games (the Tigers went 4-3 without him). “We started off very slow,” he said. “Just couldn’t get our footing. And it took us a long time to come together as a team. When we got our rhythm, we had the COVID pause, but we came out of that playing really well. We were locked and loaded for this tournament. It’s heartbreaking.”
Heartbreak inevitably turns to hope over the course of a long offseason. And there’s reason for optimism in the Tiger program. The team’s entire nine-man rotation could return for the 2021-22 campaign. As you’re sketching lineups, though, keep in mind that the transfer portal has brought an element of free agency to college basketball. Remember Tyler Harris? Lance Thomas? Where would this year’s team have been without Williams (the team’s most impactful player, from Evansville) or Landers Nolley (an all-conference honoree, from Virginia Tech)? Subtraction and addition are larger equations now, particularly in a sport where merely one or two solutions (at the right positions) can transform a team.
From Hardaway’s heralded 2019 recruiting class, Boogie Ellis and Lester Quinones have established themselves as 30-minute guards on game nights. D.J. Jeffries didn’t take the same strides forward as a sophomore, but could be a game-changer if he can score consistently. Malcolm Dandridge improved both his body and game in his second year at the college level, and Damion Baugh is a capable ball-handler off the bench if Hardaway chooses to attack with a smaller unit. With Moussa Cisse manning the middle — the AAC’s Freshman of the Year — the Tigers have a defensive eraser and, at times, an offensive threat to feed the ball. Assuming Alex Lomax fully recovers from the ankle injury that sidelined him this month, next year’s Tigers will have senior leadership in the form of a player Hardaway has groomed since middle school.
U of M Athletics / Joe Murphy
Moussa Cisse, the AAC’s Freshman of the Year.
To all the veterans, you can add the country’s 6th-ranked recruiting class (according to 247 Sports), led by a pair of four-star prospects: Jordan Nesbitt (a scoring wing from St. Louis, already with the program) and Josh Minott (a small forward from Boca Raton, Florida, who will push Jeffries for playing time). Among Hardaway’s concerns as he enters his fourth year at the helm, depth of talent isn’t one. Can as many as 11 strong players mesh as a unit, though, and sacrifice (minutes played) enough to get this program back where so many feel it belongs?
Should you have concerns about the Tiger program — seven years — don’t let the coach’s motivation be one. Shortly after he was hired in 2018, Hardaway shared some perspective on how very much he, personally, wants to win a championship — the national kind — with his alma mater. This is a man, remember, who did not win a title as a player at the high school, college, or pro level. He does, though, own an Olympic gold medal (won in 1996). “That gold medal was something we were supposed to do,” said Hardaway in 2018. “We had the best players in the world playing for one team. We’ve [now] got to do what’s not expected. They’re not expecting us to win a national championship here.”
The best advice from parents far and wide: No one should challenge you more than you challenge yourself. Every member of the Memphis Tigers’ roster and coaching staff is coming to grips with that philosophy by one measure or another. Go ahead and win the NIT. It wouldn’t hurt. Then count the days ’til November and another chance for a proud program to fully regain its footing on the national stage.
