The Memphis Tigers might as well win their first American Athletic Conference tournament. Why not? Why leave an NCAA tournament berth up to a selection committee ready and able to point out what the Tigers haven’t done this season? That committee is unlikely to reward the Tigers’ recent run of nine wins in 11 games, a run that could well be 10 of 11 had 9th-ranked Houston not escaped with a desperation buzzer-beating heave on its home floor last Sunday. The committee won’t pay attention (at least not enough attention) to the kind of team Memphis puts on the floor with DeAndre Williams in the lineup. (That team is 11-4 since Williams gained eligibility in December, and all but surely beats Houston had Williams not been seated with foul trouble most of Sunday’s game.)
U of M Athletics / Joe Murphy
DeAndre Williams
So the Tigers’ NCAA tournament actually begins Friday night, when they face the winner of East Carolina-UCF in the AAC quarterfinals. Three wins in three nights would give the 2020-21 Tigers a chance to win six more games in three weeks for the program’s first national championship. If you can’t dream at this time of year, college basketball isn’t your sport.
There was a time, not that long ago, when a conference tournament trophy was just another part of the Memphis schedule. The Tigers won the Conference USA tourney seven times in eight years from 2006 to 2013. As automatic as the 2009 championship felt (the last under coach John Calipari), the 2011 title felt just as unlikely (the first under coach Josh Pastner). Those Memphis Tigers made the C-USA tournament their runway for one NCAA tournament after another.
And these tourney championships matter. FedExForum has a glaring absence among the Tiger banners dangling from its rafters: one that salutes teams good enough to win these single-weekend brawls, often with NCAA tournament implications. Remember Memphis and Louisville taking turns bludgeoning one another in the Metro Conference tournament? If you’re too young, here’s a refresher: The Tigers and Cardinals squared off for the Metro championship four times from 1982 to 1988, each team winning a pair. Having been banned from the 1987 NCAA tournament, the Tigers went out and beat the defending-national champion Cardinals by 23 points to end their season with a trophy. There needs to be a banner acknowledging this Memphis moment, and several others.
The Tigers lost all three Great Midwest tournament championships in which they played (1992-94), each time to Cincinnati, twice with a kid named Hardaway their go-to player. An upset in ’94 would have gained an undermanned Tiger team an NCAA tournament berth. These championships matter.
Primary among Penny Hardaway’s tasks upon taking the Tiger coaching gig three years ago was establishing Memphis as the team to beat in the AAC. All the talk of “competing for national championships” is just that until the program can win a league title or two. Or seven. Memphis has played in exactly one AAC tournament championship (the Tigers lost to UConn in 2016). They need to get back to regular appearances in tourney finals.
To reach the final of this week’s tournament, Memphis will likely have to beat Houston in a semifinal Saturday. And won’t that be juicy? It won’t be Houston’s home court, but it will be the Cougars’ home state. Kelvin Sampson’s squad has already punched its ticket to the Big Dance. The Cougars want to win the AAC championship. The Memphis Tigers need to win the AAC championship. Buckle up, Tiger Nation. An intense weekend nears.
