The Memphis Tigers are national champions. Of a sort.
Sparked by 23 points from sophomore guard Boogie Ellis, the Tigers pulled away from Mississippi State after halftime and won the National Invitation Tournament in Frisco, Texas, the second NIT title for the program and first since 2002. Landers Nolley scored 10 points for Memphis and earned Most Outstanding Player honors for the tournament. A third Tiger sophomore, Lester Quinones, scored eight points and pulled down 16 rebounds to join Nolley on the all-tournament team.
The win earns Tiger coach Penny Hardaway a third-straight 20-win season, as Memphis finishes 20-8 for the campaign, one abbreviated by eight games due to Covid-19 cancellations. The Bulldogs finish their season with a record of 18-15.
The Tigers appeared on their way to a breezy win as they scored the game’s first 13 points. But their shooting got sidetracked and DeAndre Williams was forced to the bench midway through the opening half with his second foul. Led by Olive Branch native Cameron Matthews, the Bullies gradually reduced the Memphis lead before tying the game at 33 just before the halftime buzzer. (The Tigers shot a dreadful 27 percent over the game’s first 20 minutes.)
Ellis hit three-pointers on back-to-back possessions early in the second half to give the Tigers a nine-point cushion (46-37). He connected on another to make the lead 11 (55-44) with just over 11 minutes to play. (Ellis hit four of seven shots from beyond the arc for the game.) A D.J. Jeffries trey with 4:15 on the clock put Memphis up 67-51 and essentially clinched a postgame celebration. Jeffries finished the game with 15 points and five rebounds. Williams scored 12 points despite being limited to 25 minutes of action.
“It wasn’t easy,” said Hardaway after the trophy presentation. “We had to grind. I never let up. It’s a huge start for where this program really wants to go. I knew we had the talent. We just have to commit to doing it for 40 minutes.”
How did the Tigers pull off this championship? You might look back to February 1st, when Hardaway sent a starting unit of Ellis, Quinones, Nolley, Williams, and freshman Moussa Cisse to the FedExForum floor to start a game against UCF. Starting with that game (a 27-point Memphis win), the Tigers went 11-2 to finish the season, the only two losses coming in the closing seconds to a team — the Houston Cougars — that will compete in the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight. (Houston plays Oregon State Monday night in the Midwest Region final.) Hardaway’s players discovered — or perhaps determined — their roles and made the third-year coach’s job easier as February turned to March and the postseason arrived.
How much will the championship mean to a program that has not played in the NCAA tournament since 2014? Finishing one season on a high note — and consider this as high as they’ve come since 2002 — can do wonders for the next. A college basketball team would rather lose in the first round of “the Big Dance” than win “that other tournament,” which speaks to the character, each year, of the team that actually competes and wins the NIT. This year, that team is the University of Memphis.
All nine members of the Tigers’ playing rotation are eligible to return for the 2021-22 season. If they do, you can count on a Top-25 ranking come November. Add a pair of four-star recruits to the mix — Josh Minott and Jordan Nesbitt — and it appears Hardaway is close to a talent surplus as he plots the course for his fourth season at the helm. Such are the kind of problems coaches — and fan bases — dream about.
“We have so much talent, sometimes we get in each other’s way,” noted Hardaway. “We’re headed in the right direction. It’s a beautiful thing to see. We want to win championships. The NIT is just a start. If this group wants to stay together, we’ll be really dangerous. They know what the culture is.”
For now, for an entire offseason, there’s a championship to celebrate. In a season we’ll remember for a pandemic’s repercussions, we’ll also remember lots of smiles, whether or not they were hidden by masks. A Memphis Tigers team found the best version of itself and put on the right kind of show deep in the heart of Texas.
