Losses are seldom remembered, but make no mistake: The second half of the Tigers’ defeat Saturday in the American Athletic Conference semifinals was the most memorable 20 minutes of Penny Hardaway’s three-year coaching career. Trailing the 7th-ranked Houston Cougars by 12 points (41-29) at halftime — and looking like a team down 20 — the Tigers played as though lit on fire after the break. Memphis took the lead (51-50) with just over nine minutes to play, the first of ten lead changes over the game’s final nine minutes. But three-point attempts by, first, Landers Nolley and then Boogie Ellis rattled off the rim with the Tigers down three (74-71) inside the game’s final 30 seconds. Houston’s Justin Gorham connected on a pair of free throws to clinch the Cougars’ trip to the tournament championship game, where they’ll play Cincinnati Sunday.
Barring an unlikely bid to the NCAA tournament, the Tigers’ season will end with a record of 16-8, while Houston improves to 23-3. If Memphis misses “the Big Dance,” it will be the first seven-year drought for the program since the Tigers’ tournament debut in 1955. Hardaway would become the first Memphis coach to end three straight seasons without a tournament appearance since Wayne Yates (1977-79). (No tournament was held in 2020 because of the coronavirus outbreak.)
The two-point loss left a trail of “what if” scenarios? What if all-conference swingman Landers Nolley had taken more than one shot in the first half? What if the Tigers hadn’t missed 12 of their 27 free throws? What if DeAndre Williams hadn’t been hampered by foul trouble (committing his fifth with 2:34 to play and Memphis up 68-67)? What if the injured Alex Lomax — one of the Tigers’ top defensive players — had been available to pester the likes of Quentin Grimes (21 points and a huge three-pointer just under the two-minute mark) or Marcus Sasser (14 points)?
Those free throws. The Tigers lost despite making more field goals (26-26) than Houston and holding the Cougars to 32 percent from three-point range. Ellis led the Tigers with 27 points and hit five three pointers (on eight attempts), but the sophomore guard missed six of his ten free throws.
Williams scored 16 points for Memphis and D.J. Jeffries added 10 off the bench. Nolley scored only four points after leading the Tigers with an average of 13.0 for the season.
The NCAA tournament field will be announced late Sunday afternoon after the last of the tournament championships are played. Most prognosticators have Memphis among the last four or five teams to be excluded from the event. They failed to secure a win this season over a “Quad 1” opponent (teams in the upper tier of rankings based on schedule and location of wins). The Tigers last appeared in what’s come to be known as March Madness at the end of the 2013-14 season, their first as members of the AAC.
