Sunday at FedExForum felt like big-time college basketball. Jim Nantz and Bill Raftery were courtside to describe the Memphis-Houston game for a national television audience, the same CBS tandem we’ll see for the national championship on April 4th. The 14th-ranked Cougars stormed out of the visitors’ locker room, eager to avenge their only home loss of the season (to the Memphis Tigers on February 12th). Best of all, the arena was near capacity, fans almost entirely dressed in white, cheers raining down from the upper deck. It felt a lot like 2009, or at least a lot like 2019.
The Tigers won the game, and it was never close. Said senior guard Alex Lomax after his team had secured a program-record 13th win in the American Athletic Conference, “The crowd is like a sixth man, and some teams can’t handle it.” A Memphis team that would have been described as maligned — at best — a dozen games ago, completed its regular season with a record of 19-9, having won 10 of its last 11 contests. Regardless of what happens at this week’s AAC tournament in Fort Worth, Memphis should end an eight-year drought with a return to the NCAA tournament, where big-time college basketball is played for three glorious weekends.
“I feel blessed,” said Memphis coach Penny Hardaway, a man who appeared in the NCAA tournament twice as a Tiger player but seeks his first dance ticket in his fourth year at the helm of the program. “To showcase who we are against one of the best teams in the country, to the entire nation … It’s a great day to be a Tiger. The guys came together at the right time. I call it spiritual momentum. An understanding of where we want to be, leaving egos at the door, and the entire building coming together as one.”
With the postseason here, the Tigers’ first order of business is the AAC tourney, where they’ll open with a quarterfinal game Friday night. The Tigers have only reached the AAC final once (they lost in 2016), and they’ll likely have to face nemesis SMU in the semifinals. But the two wins over Houston and the upset of 6th-ranked Alabama in December should be enough for Memphis to play on even if it comes up short in Texas.
Three proverbial “intangibles” to consider for a lengthy Tiger march toward glory:
• Health. Landers Nolley, DeAndre Williams, Jalen Duren, and Alex Lomax each missed multiple games with injuries this season. All four players are now healthy, and the same goes for the other five members of Hardaway’s rotation. It’s no coincidence that winning ways were discovered when players emerged from the trainer’s room. Nolley himself has said, “it’s on us” if the Tigers fall short this month. No excuses, least of all injuries.
• Experience. The Tigers have no NCAA tournament experience, but this is a veteran bunch. Lomax and Harris are playing as seniors and Williams is 25 years old, for crying out loud. (For some perspective, Williams is three years older than Ja Morant.) Junior guard Lester Quinones has started 76 games in a Tiger uniform. Perhaps most significantly, each of these players knows how hard it is to reach the NCAA tournament. Nary a minute of playing time will be taken for granted, should Memphis make the field of 68. And pressure? These young men have spent their college days trying to live up to Memphis Tigers history (including that of their head coach), and under pandemic conditions. The lights will not be too bright for them.
• Confidence. Lomax, Harris, and Nolley appeared together for the postgame press conference after Sunday’s win over the Cougars. And what sticks with me from their appearance are the smiles. The levity. The joy from finishing the regular season on a high, and all the hopes for postseason success that kind of high delivers. There’s so much yet to gain for the University of Memphis program in 2022, but there’s also some big-time college basketball yet to be played.
