Tag: Penny Hardaway

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Madness!

AAC Player of the Year PJ Haggerty (Photos: Wes Hale)

The Memphis Tigers are back in the NCAA tournament. This is progress. Even better would be a pair of wins and the program’s first trip to the Sweet 16 in well over a decade. But let’s think ambitiously. With six wins needed to cut down the nets as national champion, here are six factors that could make this March memorable for Memphis.

Forget history, especially the previous six seasons. With the exception of forward Nicholas Jourdain, Penny Hardaway’s first six years as Tiger coach mean absolutely nothing to the current roster. The Wiseman Affair. The Lost Postseason of 2020. The Missed Timeout against FAU in the 2023 NCAA tournament. And (blech) the Nosedive of 2024. Sure, this is Tiger basketball history, but it cannot so much as enter the brainwaves of the last man on the Memphis bench.

In his seventh season at the helm, Penny Hardaway led the Tigers to a 16-2 league record and earned AAC Coach of the Year honors.

Following the Tigers’ season-opening win over Missouri way back in November, PJ Haggerty (new to the program from Tulsa) emphasized the good chemistry he felt with his new teammates, actually emphasizing “no beef,” no tension between players just establishing their roles. Guard Tyrese Hunter (new to the program from Texas and this season a first-team All-AAC selection) said this Memphis team has “no ego,” that he and his teammates have “blinders on” for a shared mission.

Point guard Tyrese Hunter suffered an injury to his left foot in the AAC semifinals. His status for the NCAA tournament is unclear.

Read between those lines and you recognize the after-effects of a 2023-24 season where egos were indeed a variable, where a beef or two seemed to compromise any mission, let alone that of a deep NCAA tournament run. Three weeks after that opening win, the Tigers beat both Connecticut (the two-time defending national champions) and Michigan State in Maui to more than clean the slate for a new team, a new campaign. The slogan for the 2024-25 Memphis Tigers should be … This is now. What can today bring?

When asked about his current team and a strength that can help it succeed in tournament play, the 2025 AAC Coach of the Year doesn’t hesitate: “Our unity. We all have the same goal. It hasn’t been that way around here in past years. It’s been kind of selfish. Some people have been so good, they felt they could do it on their own. With this group, our biggest attribute is our unity. We’re together as one.”

Stars must star. While the players must keep those blinders on, we can turn to history for some guidance in what to expect when the Madness tips off. And every Final Four run the Memphis Tigers have made has featured a Leading Man: Larry Finch in 1973, Keith Lee in 1985, and Chris Douglas-Roberts or Derrick Rose (take your pick) in 2008. A sophomore sensation by the name of Hardaway took the Tigers to the Elite Eight in 1992. You get the idea.

PJ Haggerty is this team’s alpha, and he will need to seize that role — maybe even inflate it — for the Tigers to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time in 16 years. The AAC Player of the Year is already just the seventh Memphis player to score 700 points in a season. (He needs 22 to break Dajuan Wagner’s program record of 762.) Haggerty scored 13 points in six minutes to fuel a second-half comeback at UAB on March 2nd that essentially clinched the AAC title for the Tigers. He poured in 42 in the AAC tournament quarterfinals, a win over Wichita State in which his teammates combined to score 41.

“He’s a dreamer,” says Hardaway. “He sat home and watched the NCAA tournament when he was young, like we all have. To have this situation now — ranked the number-one shooting guard in the country, conference player of the year — he’s still dreaming. He may have hoped for all this to happen, but now that it’s actually here, he’s excited.”

Dainja! Dainja!! FedExForum announcer Geoff Mack found his muse with the arrival of Dain Dainja. The Tigers’ big man with soft hands (a transfer from Illinois) has often raised the arena’s energy level with a gentle hook shot or follow-up slam. And when that energy peaks, Mack will bellow into his microphone, “DAINJA! … DAINJA!!” It’s the happiest reaction to something, yes, dangerous we’ll witness near a basketball court.

Dain Dainja tops the Tigers in rebounding and earned first-team All-AAC recognition.

Hardaway inserted Dainja into the Tigers’ starting lineup for their showdown with UAB on January 26th, a game that would determine first place in the American Athletic Conference. Dainja hit 10 of 12 shots and pulled down eight rebounds in only 25 minutes of what proved to be an easy (100-77) Memphis victory. Memphis has only lost one game since. 

How critical is Dainja to a deep run for the Tigers? He and Moussa Cisse are the only “bigs” Hardaway has in his rotation, the closest players — in body and style — to an old-fashioned center. They will be needed to protect the rim on the defensive side and provide interior threats (particularly Dainja) when the Tigers have the ball. Pay attention to fouls for either of these players. And expect Hardaway to leave them on the floor even if they accumulate four. “Going small” might be a strategy, but not when it’s forced.

Dainja vanished in a game at Wichita State on February 16th (four points and a single rebound in 20 minutes of playing time), and the Tigers lost in overtime to a very beatable Shockers team. A week later at FedExForum, Dainja (Dainja!) scored 22 points, pulled down 11 rebounds, and blocked four shots in a 19-point victory over FAU. “It shows me that he cares,” said Hardaway after Dainja’s resurrection against the Owls. “These guys care. They want to come back and do better [after an off game]. He knew he let himself down [against Wichita State]. He has so much pride and he came back hungrier.”

As for the now of it all, Dainja — yet another first-team All-AAC honoree — actually mentioned “getting old” after the Tigers beat Temple last month. (He’s 22.) His basketball life is about winning. The busier Dainja finds himself this postseason, the more danger Memphis opponents will experience.

Clean the glass. There’s one unifying thread when you examine the Tigers’ five losses this season: more rebounds by their opponent. If you consider every rebound an extra chance to score, Temple had 24 more opportunities (49-25) in the Owls’ seven-point win in January. That ugly loss at Wichita State? The Shockers pulled down 54 rebounds to the Tigers’ 45.

Memphis is not a big team. Dainja, Cisse, and Jourdain will be trusted with much of the rebounding responsibility, but smaller players — Haggerty and Colby Rogers, to name two starters — must earn a few extra possessions for the Tigers to win the close games to come. And beware foul trouble for the 6’9” Dainja or the 6’11” Cisse. Losing either for an extended stretch would force Hardaway to play “small ball,” and against the wrong opponent, that can go sideways fast.

“Once Dain gets going,” notes Hardaway, “you have to double-team him. And we can tee up threes; we love that advantage. He’s bought into the role we have for him. He knew Moussa was coming and didn’t know how much time he would get. We need him to score, so we make him comfortable.” If the Tigers are to advance this month, they need Dainja to rebound, too.

Unheralded hero. Or two. The margin between victory and defeat in the NCAA tournament is miniscule. Three years ago, in the second round, the Tigers led the top-ranked team in the country (Gonzaga) at halftime, only to stumble in the second half. Two years ago, had an official granted the Tigers the late-game timeout players requested during a scramble, it may have been Memphis (and not FAU) that advanced to the Final Four.

Remember that win over Connecticut last November? The Tigers found themselves going to overtime against the second-ranked team in the country, but with Haggerty having fouled out. Into the spotlight strides another PJ, last name Carter. The UTSA transfer proceeded to make six consecutive free throws and drain a three-pointer to all but personally deliver a season-changing upset to his new team. 

Haggerty and Dainja must have a productive supporting cast for Memphis to advance in the Big Dance. Will Carter be the one to grab some national attention off the bench? Maybe it will be Rogers, at times a long-distance threat (and others virtually invisible). If the current Tigers have a “glue guy,” it’s Jourdain, the lone veteran, now wrapping up his second season under Hardaway. The senior has started every game this season after starting 25 upon his arrival from Temple for the 2023-24 campaign. Jourdain had a pair of late put-backs at UAB that helped seal the Tigers’ biggest win in conference play. His averages of 6.4 points per game and 5.6 rebounds are mere whispers of his value. Depth is an overrated factor for a 40-minute basketball game, but a surprise performance is always welcome. One or two can shift that precious margin for victory in the right direction.

Embrace the unlikely. Hardaway is associated with the number 1, and for obvious reasons. But the retired jersey number below his name that has hung from the rafters above the Tigers’ court for 30 years now is … 25. Could such a celebrated-but-forgotten pair of digits be an omen for a 2025 tournament run under Coach Hardaway’s watch?

Consider that these Tigers won the first AAC regular-season crown in program history. This was not predicted back in November. (UAB was picked to win.) These Tigers climbed to a ranking of 14th in the AP poll, the highest Memphis has been ranked after Valentine’s Day since 2009 (John Calipari’s last season as head coach). This was not predicted back in November, as the Tigers began the season outside the Top 25. These Tigers have nabbed a 5 seed in the NCAA tournament. Also not predicted, and how significant, you ask? Memphis has reached the Sweet 16 ten times since seeding began in 1979, but never seeded lower than sixth.

As for the crucible of NCAA tournament play, consider the Tigers’ record this season away from FedExForum: 16-3. Not only have they won an ocean away from home (Maui), but they’ve won at Clemson, at Virginia, at Tulane, and at UAB, smaller arenas packed with crowds loudly rooting against their success. This Memphis team may encounter an opponent with more talent, maybe more luck. But it’s hard to imagine the Tigers being intimidated by what’s to come with all the madness. 

“They want to be champions,” emphasizes Hardaway. “They’ve come together and bonded. They’ve set out on a mission, and they’re not letting anything distract them. We’ve had a couple of bad games in conference, but these guys are locked in. They’re together. That’s why we’re so resilient.” 

Seeded 5th in the West Region, Memphis (29-5) opens play on Friday in Seattle against Colorado State (25-9).

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Axe Attack, Sad and Lost, and Locked

Posted to Reddit by u/CaryWhit

Memphis on the internet.

Axe Attack

Horrifying footage captured a man attacking a car with an axe after a fender bender weekend before last. The man, apparently fueled by road rage after an older couple rear-ended his car, busted windows and the windshield before police arrived. The Memphis subreddit’s top comment from u/ManRahaim summed it up: “yo, wtf.”

Sad and Lost

Memphis Reddit user u/Super_Situation_9346 poured their heart out about the state of the city last week, especially Cordova (as far as we can tell). The user was “horrified” by litter, plummeting property values, “raggity streets,” and population loss. The sub’s moderator jumped in to say, “this is a sub for the rural Alaskan village, Cordova.”

Locked

Posted to X by Memphis Basketball

University of Memphis Tigers men’s basketball players drenched coach Penny Hardaway with bottled water Sunday after their win against the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The win ensured the team a place in the NCAA Tournament.  

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Sports Tiger Blue

Haggerty is “Him”

PJ Haggerty (photo by Wes Hale)

In seven years as basketball coach at his alma mater, Penny Hardaway hasn’t always delivered March Madness for the University of Memphis. But let it be said he has delivered star power. The Tigers have featured a first-team all-conference player in each of Hardaway’s first six seasons and will all but certainly make it seven straight this March when current headliner PJ Haggerty gains the honor from the American Athletic Conference. It would be an unprecedented streak for the proud program.

How good has Haggerty been since transferring from Tulsa? He’s among AAC leaders in scoring (21.6 points per game), steals (2.1), minutes (36.5), and free throws made (145). He could follow Kendric Davis and David Jones and become the third straight Memphis player to win an AAC scoring title (he’s third in the entire country), and if the Tigers play enough postseason games, Haggerty could join six former Tigers  — including his current coach — with a 700-point season. The sophomore’s numbers are all up from his 2023-24 campaign, for which he was named the AAC’s Freshman of the Year.  

And the mark of true impact is consistency. Haggerty has scored fewer than 12 points in only one game this season and he’s topped 20 points in 15 games. The Texas native achieves this by regularly getting to the foul line (he’s fourth in the country in free throws) and making the shots (81 percent). Haggerty made 11 of 14 freebies in the Tigers’ two-point upset of defending national champion UConn in Maui. He hit 10 of 11 in another two-point win at Virginia in December. A famous coach around here once said his players would “make their free throws when they need to.” They’re all needed, and Haggerty makes them. It’s among the chief reasons Memphis is in the Top 25 with aspirations for more than a single NCAA tournament game.

“[Haggerty] is so good at what he does,” emphasizes Hardaway. “He’s a quiet spirit, but he plays aggressively. Once he gets going, he’s pretty dang good.” Hardaway shared those views of his star after the first game of the season. He also noted that last season, only Zach Edey (the national player of the year and current Memphis Grizzly) took more free throws than Haggerty. PJ Carter has been a valuable reserve for Hardaway. The Tigers would not have beaten Connecticut without Carter’s starring role in overtime and he outscored Haggerty in last week’s win at Tulane. Alas, Carter is decidedly “the other PJ” on this roster.

There’s a somewhat new, though already tiring, exclamation for athletes intent on seizing even more spotlight than the multimedia universe currently provides: “I’m him!” The message being, apparently, that the person shouting is The Man, The Guy, The Player Paramount To Your Team’s Chance At Victory. (I’ve yet to see, by the way, a WNBA star scream, “I’m her!” at a camera.) Haggerty, fortunately, does not lean on this mantra, but the notion is one to consider as March nears and the Tigers’ chances at an NCAA tournament run are tossed around whatever water coolers may still exist. 

The Tigers beat UAB on January 26th in a showdown for first place in the AAC, and Haggerty’s 23 points were a large factor. But his nine assists helped make the victory a 100-77 blowout. Consider it a case of “him” making “them” better. “Trying to make the game easier,” said Haggerty after the win. “Just get my teammates involved, get them going early.”

Memphis has suited up precisely three players who earned first-team All-America honors from the Associated Press: Keith Lee (1985), Hardaway (1993), and Chris Douglas-Roberts (2008). Each of those players led a Memphis team to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament and two of them reached the Final Four. That, more than the individual honor, is how the trio tends to be remembered among folks in blue and gray. For all his stardom — for all his “himness” — PJ Haggerty must lift his teammates to new heights in March to gain legend status in these parts. For now, let’s say he’s checking the boxes.

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Sports Sports Feature

Game Recap ’24

Seth Henigan (Photo: Wes Hale)

If the Bluff City had an Athlete of the Year for 2024, it was University of Memphis quarterback Seth Henigan. The senior piled up records like a greedy 5-year-old under the Christmas tree. Henigan became the first Tiger signal-caller to toss 100 touchdown passes (104) and climbed to 13th on the FBS career passing-yardage chart (14,266). Best of all, he led Memphis to an 11-2 record, a third straight postseason victory (over West Virginia in the Frisco Bowl), and finished his career with 34 wins, a mark no future Tiger quarterback is likely to match. Add the heroics of running back Mario Anderson Jr. — 1,362 rushing yards and 21 touchdowns — and Memphis is all but certain to finish in the AP Top 25 for only the fourth time in program history.

The Tigers’ gridiron success made for some late-year balance to an otherwise disappointing 12 months in Memphis sports. Ravaged by injuries (and a lengthy suspension for star guard Ja Morant), the Memphis Grizzlies missed the NBA playoffs for the first time in three years. The only silver lining: A miserable record (27-55) earned the Grizz the ninth selection in the draft, a pick they used to acquire towering center Zach Edey, the two-time national college player of the year at Purdue. As 2025 approaches, Memphis is near the top of the Western Conference standings. Let’s call 2024 a hibernation year in Grizzlies history.

College basketball was no less disappointing. Coach Penny Hardaway’s Tigers roared to a 15-2 start, climbing to a ranking of 10th in the country … only to bumble their way through their American Athletic Conference schedule, finishing with a mark of 22-10 and missing out on the NCAA tournament. David Jones won the AAC scoring title in his only season in blue and gray, but an 11-7 record in that league doesn’t impress come March.

On the diamond, slugging first baseman Luken Baker starred for the Redbirds, leading the International League in home runs a second straight season despite a late-summer promotion to the St. Louis Cardinals. Baseball America’s Pitcher of the Year, Quinn Mathews, finished his season with Memphis, tossing his 200th strikeout of the season — a minor-league rarity — in a Redbirds uniform. Look for Mathews to anchor the 2025 rotation (until the Cardinals decide he’s needed in St. Louis).

Memphis said goodbye to our USL Championship soccer club, 901 FC. Without a soccer-only stadium in the plans, the franchise is moving to Santa Barbara, California, after six up-and-down seasons at AutoZone Park. For the sports historians, 901 FC put up an overall record of 76 wins, 62 losses, and 45 draws.

Hideki Matsuyama won the 2024 FedEx St. Jude Championship (FESJC) at TPC Southwind, this being the third year Memphis has hosted the opening tournament of the FedEx Cup playoffs. Along with the Southern Heritage Classic and the AutoZone Liberty Bowl, the FESJC is an annual reminder that Memphis can put on a show like few other cities in the world of sports. Let the 2025 games begin. 

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Sports Tiger Blue

Maui Magic for the Memphis Tigers

Penny Hardaway (photo by Wes Hale)

Penny Hardaway’s seventh season as coach of the Memphis Tigers began with a bang(!) Monday in Maui. A roster that’s all but entirely new battled the second-ranked Connecticut Huskies into overtime and, thanks to nine points (six free throws) from someone named P.J. Carter, upset the two-time defending national champions, 99-97. Wait, you say, Memphis entered the game with four wins in four games. Began?

The nature of college basketball in 2024 is, in a word, flux. Players come and go with the frequency of fickle middle-school crushes. Last year’s Tiger star, David Jones, played one season in blue and gray (and won the American Athletic Conference scoring title). The Tigers’ star in 2022-23, Kendric Davis, played one season in blue and gray (and won the American Athletic Conference scoring title). These were veteran players that Hardaway essentially borrowed for a one-winter run. Cutting to the present, the 2024-25 Tigers are measuring the star power of their new roster, knowing full well most of the players we see in uniform in Maui will not be here twelve months from now. And those first four games didn’t tell us much, other than this group plays better after halftime than before.

Then came the opening game of the Maui Invitational. A team that struggled after the tip in its first four contests hit 56 percent of its shots (and five of ten three-point attempts) in going toe to toe with the mighty Huskies, the score knotted, 40 each, at halftime. Those twenty minutes would have been a win for Memphis, coming so early in the season against such a formidable foe. But the Tigers played even better (that developing trend) after the break. They again hit five of ten long-distance shots, matched UConn in rebounding, and led by 13 points with under five minutes to play. But the Huskies played like the champions they are, tying the game on a nothing-but-net three-pointer by Solo Ball with a second left on the clock. Those 40 minutes would have been a win for Memphis.

But the Tigers played even better in overtime, and without their primary scoring threat, P.J. Haggerty, who fouled out late in regulation. Enter P.J. Carter. The Atlanta native is playing his fifth college season. He spent two years at Campbell University (4.3 minutes per game), a year at Georgia Highlands College, and last season at UTSA, where he started 10 games and averaged 9.5 points per game. With six clutch free throws and a three pointer in the overtime period on Monday, Carter is now a Memphis Tiger for life. That’s how big the Tigers’ Hawaiian punch felt at the final buzzer.

Hardaway needs this team to get to the NCAA tournament . . . and win a couple of games in the Big Dance. Year Seven is long enough to wait for the hometown legend to return some glory to a long-proud program. Honestly, Hardaway has produced more national controversies as coach of the Tigers than he has NCAA tournament victories (one). And this is why the upset of UConn felt like a beginning. (For some perspective, the last time Memphis beat the second-ranked team in the country was an upset of Louisville at the Mid-South Coliseum on March 2, 1972, four months before Hardaway’s first birthday.) A team most of us didn’t know two weeks ago now has familiar faces (Tyrese Hunter!) who seem capable of beating, yes, anybody in the country.

It would be nice if Memphis beats Michigan State on Tuesday and goes on to win the Maui Invitational. But even with a loss to the Spartans, the 2024-25 Tigers have created a permanent memory: Remember Maui! That is exceedingly hard in modern college basketball, and next to impossible without a lengthy tournament run in March. A new season, a new roster, and, it appears, a new life for coach Penny Hardaway. Many journey to the islands to make a dream come true. Perhaps these Tigers’ truth is creating new dreams. 

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Sports Tiger Blue

Friendly Fire

Mario Anderson (photo by Wes Hale)

Memphis Tiger football would not be where it is today — and Ryan Silverfield would not be in charge of the program — were it not for Mike Norvell. The Tigers travel to Tallahassee this week for a Saturday confrontation with Norvell’s current team, the Florida State Seminoles. It’s hard to imagine a more poignant game against a former coach in the history of the Memphis program.

Should your memory be unusually short, Norvell arrived in Memphis as a rookie head coach before the 2016 season (with Ryan Silverfield a member of his staff). If you were familiar with the 35-year-old Arizona State assistant then, you frankly spent too much time on college football. But in just four years, Norvell won 38 games, led the Tigers to three appearances in the American Athletic Conference championship game (winning in 2019), and earned the most prestigious bowl berth (the 2019 Cotton Bowl) in Tigers history. That’s how you get the Florida State gig before your 40th birthday. Last season, Norvell’s fourth at FSU, the Seminoles went 13-0 but were somehow left out of the four-team College Football Playoff. (After several players opted out of the Orange Bowl, Florida State was crushed by Georgia.)

Florida State will not go 13-0 this season, having lost its first two games, to Georgia Tech and Boston College. Memphis will not be facing a Top-10 team this weekend, a disappointment for a program favored to win a “Group of 5” league but thirsty for an early-season attention grabber. Blowout wins over North Alabama and Troy go only so far.

Last July, I asked Silverfield about facing his former boss early in the 2024 schedule. “I’m gonna treat it like any other game,” he said. “I’ll see some of my closest friends down there. I’m from Jacksonville. If I didn’t get this job, I might still be sitting next to Mike, coaching his offensive line. But once training camp starts, I won’t give that game a single thought until the Sunday [before].”

To translate, it will be an emotional game for those with fond memories of Mike Norvell in Memphis (read: anyone who saw a game from 2016 to 2019). But for Ryan Silverfield and the current Memphis Tigers, the contest has to be treated like a step — among 12 games on the schedule — toward a higher goal. And the only way to stack wins toward a conference championship (and playoff contention) is going 1-0, week after week. Thus Florida State is “any other game.” 

The Seminoles will play better than the 0-2 team they are. The Tigers will likely fall short of the standard they’ve set by outscoring two teams 78-17. But quarterback Seth Henigan is climbing the Tiger and AAC record charts with every contest and the Memphis ground game seems to be in the capable hands of Mario Anderson (125 yards on 17 carries against Troy). This Saturday’s showdown in Tallahassee will be a fun and, yes, sentimental showcase for a Memphis team still rising.

• As for the U of M basketball program, coach Penny Hardaway is once again surrounded by smoke. (Didn’t he ask for this upon taking the job six years ago?) An anonymous letter to the NCAA alleges both financial and academic misdeeds on Hardaway’s watch. You can safely ignore the padding of recruits’ wallets. (See the $20 million it has reportedly cost Ohio State to build its current football roster.) But if academic fraud involving Malcolm Dandridge can be traced to Hardaway, it will be a sad and awkward exit for a local legend. That’s a big “if,” of course. Here’s to a day we can again discuss Tiger basketball without a cloud of scrutiny growing thicker and darker. 

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Sports Sports Feature

Phil’s FESJC

Phil Cannon

This is arguably the greatest week of the year for Memphis sports. Seventy of the finest golfers on the planet arrive in the Bluff City for the FedEx St. Jude Championship, the first of three playoff tournaments to decide the winner of this year’s FedEx Cup. Masters champion Scottie Scheffler will be here. Xander Schauffele — winner of the PGA Championship and the British Open — will be here. So will Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, and Justin Thomas. Memphis is the center of the golf universe for a precious, if humid, weekend.

I always think of Phil Cannon when the FESJC rolls around. We lost the longtime tournament director much too soon (in 2016), but Phil’s imprint on the event lives on, and in ways that go beyond any plaque or statue. The hundreds of volunteers who make you feel like the tournament belongs to you, personally? That’s Phil Cannon’s influence. A media center equipped with every tool a reporter might need to best share a story? That’s Phil Cannon’s influence. And the ongoing bonds between our tournament and both St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and FedEx? That’s Phil Cannon’s priority list, living and breathing, making the FESJC distinct from any other golf tournament in the world.

Phil was the primary source for my very first feature in Memphis Magazine, way back in June 1994. He treated me like a veteran scribe in town for Sports Illustrated. I have little doubt every writer who crossed his path would tell you the same thing. Phil Cannon was a Memphis treasure. When the FESJC makes sports headlines every summer, I’m reminded that he still is.

• The Memphis Redbirds unveiled a new sign on the outfield wall at AutoZone Park last Saturday, a tribute to the 1938 Negro American League champion Memphis Red Sox. It made for a glorious night at the ballpark, Memphis beating Gwinnett, 8-2, while wearing uniforms commemorating the city’s Negro League team of days gone by.

It’s a good start for a franchise and facility that desperately needs to better embrace the history we’ve seen over the ballpark’s first quarter-century. That lone red chair on the right-field bluff? That’s where Albert Pujols (yes, that guy) hit a baseball to win the 2000 Pacific Coast League championship for Memphis. But there’s no plaque to tell a new fan why September 15, 2000, is an important date in Memphis sports history. Just an oddly placed red seat. 

And how about a reminder (poster?) that Yadier Molina played here, and actually caught his first game with Adam Wainwright on the mound at AutoZone Park? (The two broke the major-league record for starts by a battery in 2022.) You might recognize highlights of David Freese from the 2011 World Series. Did you know Freese hit game-winning home runs in the 2009 PCL playoffs, helping Memphis to its second championship? A visual reminder would make AutoZone Park a better, happier place.

• The U.S. Olympic basketball teams (men and women) both brought home gold medals from the Paris Games. Salute to LeBron James, Breanna Stewart, and the many future Hall of Famers who handled the uncomfortable role of heavy favorite and made it to the podium. It makes for a good time to remind voters for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame that Memphis legend Penny Hardaway is the only member of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team — also gold medalists — not currently enshrined. The only one. Mitch Richmond is in the Hall of Fame, for crying out loud, but not Penny Hardaway. Let’s get this corrected.

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Cool Facebook Group, Stay Positive, and @Memphis

Posted to Facebook by Don Johnson

Memphis on the internet.

Through the Eyes of Black Memphis

Follow the Facebook group called Through the Eyes of Black Memphis for some cool history and fun photos. Top contributor Don Johnson posted the photo above of Penny Hardaway stopping by the Nike store on Shelby Drive in the 1990s. 

Stay Positive

Posted to Instagram by City of Memphis

The city invited everyone to stay positive about, well, the city last week. An Instagram Reel features Memphis Mayor Paul Young, Al Kapone, Greater Memphis Chamber president and CEO Ted Townsend, and more sharing what they love most about Memphis. 

If you need a shot of positivity, search #MemphisProud, #PositiveMemphis, and #CelebrateMemphis.

@Memphis

Posted to X by Memphis Depay

After years of saying we wouldn’t feature him just because of his name, here we are. Dutch footballer Memphis Depay, owner of the @Memphis X handle, helped push the Netherlands to the Euro 2024 semifinals with a win over Turkey last week. 

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Cover Feature News Sports Sports Feature

Good Times, Bad Times

Penny Hardaway (Photo: Wes Hale)

I’m appreciative of the people who have stood by us through these hard times. You can pinpoint a lot of things, but the one thing I do know: God doesn’t make mistakes. All of the negativity through this entire thing … these are still kids. They can have a bad day, a bad game, a bad week. That doesn’t mean there’s a disconnect between coach and players because you’re losing. Everything gets heightened here in Memphis. I was chosen to do this, not by the University of Memphis but by God, honestly. I took this job when it was at its lowest moment. I only want to do well for the city. I’m going to be hardest on myself. It guts me, because I want our city to be known for something other than what it’s known for. These are some tough times. Everybody has an opinion. But I know God has a plan, and there’s a plan for this team. I’m happy that I’m coaching this team. — University of Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway, after the Tigers ended a four-game losing streak with a win over Wichita State

On February 3rd at FedExForum, the Memphis Tigers found themselves down 14 points with less than 10 minutes to play against the supposedly inferior Wichita State Shockers. A loss would give a proud program not only its first five-game losing streak in six seasons under coach Penny Hardaway, but the program’s first five-game losing streak in 24 years.

Point guard Jahvon Quinerly — a senior transfer from Alabama — came to the rescue with a three-pointer to give Memphis its first lead of the game with 44 seconds on the clock. (It was the only field goal Quinerly made on an otherwise forgettable afternoon.) After the Shockers evened the score with a free throw, David Jones — a senior transfer from St. John’s — buried a short jumper from the left wing to snatch a Tiger win, as they say, from the jaws of ugly defeat. Losing streak over. A season that found the Tigers ranked 10th in the country merely three weeks earlier had been somewhat saved. At least until the next tip-off. The season has seen dreadfully ugly losses (at SMU) and the kinds of wins that seem to lift an entire region (the “get-back” over FAU in late February).

Like any decent Hollywood production, a college basketball season has a setup (nonconference play), a confrontation (league competition), and a resolution (postseason). This winter’s Tiger flick has, at times, made the popcorn tasty and, at others, forced fans to hurl the bucket in disgust. All with a resolution yet to come.

Point guard Jahvon Quinerly leads the Tigers in assists. (Photo: Wes Hale)

THE SETUP

In over a century of Tiger basketball, never had Memphis run a nonconference gauntlet like the one Hardaway scheduled for last fall. Seven teams from power conferences (ACC, SEC, and Big 10) plus a showdown with Villanova (national champions in 2016 and 2018) in the championship of the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas. Making the challenge even greater, four of these teams took the floor against Memphis ranked among the country’s top 25. (For perspective, nonconference foes in 2017-18 — Tubby Smith’s final season as coach — included Northern Kentucky, Mercer, Samford, Bryant, and Albany.)

The Tigers beat 20th-ranked Arkansas in the Bahamas. They beat 21st-ranked Texas A & M. They beat 13th-ranked Clemson. They beat 22nd-ranked Virginia. They handled Michigan, Missouri, and Vanderbilt. Before the year turned, Hardaway and his team seemed to have grabbed a national microphone and collectively screamed, Look at us!

“I love winning close games,” said Hardaway after a two-point victory against Vanderbilt at FedExForum, the fifth in what would become a 10-game winning streak. “They make you tougher.” And the Tigers were masters of the nail-biter early this season: four points better than Michigan, five better than Arkansas, two better than Clemson, overtime escapes against VCU and UTSA. Quinerly drilled game-winning three-pointers near the buzzer in consecutive wins over Tulsa and SMU. Jones earned some national spotlight with 36 points against Arkansas, a performance that launched him onto the short list for the Julius Erving Award, given to the top small forward in the country.

“We never said it was going to be easy,” stressed Hardaway after the SMU win on January 7th. “The rest of the nation thinks it’s going to be easy in this conference. I have so much respect [for the American Athletic Conference]. These kids are capable. They read the clippings about us and [league favorite] FAU. It’s more than a two-bid league. Adversity is okay; you can learn from it.”

On January 15th, a day after the Tigers eviscerated Wichita State in Kansas for their tenth straight win, the Associated Press released its weekly poll and there was Memphis at number 10 in the entire country, the program’s highest ranking so late in a season since 2009, when one John Calipari stomped the sidelines. The nine programs above Memphis? If you pay attention to college hoops, they’re familiar: UConn, Purdue, Kansas, North Carolina, Houston, Tennessee, Duke, Kentucky, and Baylor. (Six of these programs have won at least one national title since 2012.) If the Memphis program was indeed screaming into that proverbial national microphone, the right folks were listening.

Nae’Qwan Tomlin has provided an energy boost at both ends of the floor. (Photo: Wes Hale)

THE CONFRONTATION(S)

Then came the freeze. The Tigers took the floor against USF on January 18th in a virtually empty FedExForum. That week’s winter storm had left Memphis streets so icy that the U of M actually released a statement advising fans to stay home (in which case ticket-holders could exchange for a later game). The Tigers raced out to a 20-point lead … before the team from South Florida made things that much colder, earning a 74-73 upset with a late-game comeback.

Three days later in New Orleans, another supposedly undermanned squad knocked off Memphis when Tulane won, 81-79. A week later in Birmingham, old rival UAB beat the Tigers, and rather easily (97-88). But the three losses that knocked the Tigers out of the Top 25 were merely prelude to January 28th, when the Rice Owls — 7-13 at tip-off, and 1-6 in the AAC — beat Memphis on its home floor.

For 17 games, the Tigers had played with a swagger, if not quite the flash, that reflected their coach’s All-NBA playing days with the Orlando Magic. They won 15 of those games. Then suddenly, shortly after the year turned, shoulders seemed to collectively slump, and Hardaway alluded to discontent between players. When asked about his team’s precipitous drop in confidence after the Rice loss, Hardaway had this to say: “That’s player-led. I’m trying my best, going to games, going to practice, talking about the pride we need to have, to have more fun playing defense, to communicate. It just seems like there’s a huge disconnect with this group right now. I can’t put my finger on it. You can tell in our play. When the game starts, the energy isn’t there.”

Following their second win over Wichita State (and the end to that four-game losing streak), Quinerly shared some perspective on what he hoped was a team-culture shift. “We didn’t have any player meetings,” he noted, “but you could tell the communication and the focus was different at our practices and film sessions. You could feel the tension in the air. Guys were super locked-in. It showed. We guarded the ball better [against the Shockers].”

Victories over Temple and Tulane followed, but then came a mid-February trip to the Lone Star State and double-digit losses to both North Texas and SMU (the latter a 106-79 mockery of the Tigers’ win over the Mustangs at FedExForum in early January). On February 24th, the university announced an inquiry involving fifth-year senior Malcolm Dandridge, sidelining an important member of the Tiger rotation entering the most important stage of the season. Memphis partially avenged its 2023 NCAA tournament loss to FAU the very next day. Ups and downs. Downs and ups.

How and why did a team mentioned as a Final Four contender in mid-January fall so precipitously, and so fast? You might start with a pair of hideous defensive measures. Through the end of the regular season, Memphis ranks 348th in three-pointers allowed: 9.1 per game. (This is according to College Basketball Reference, which tracks 362 teams in Division I.) And the Tigers rank 359th in offensive-rebounds allowed: 12.8 per game. These are effort stats. Bottom line: The Tigers haven’t guarded the perimeter and they haven’t hit the glass. In other words, they do a lot of standing and watching on defense. It’s murder on a team’s Final Four chances.

And there’s luck. Had Quinerly not hit those buzzer-beaters against Tulsa and SMU, there may not have been a 10-game winning streak or Top-10 ranking. Right player, right time, right moment … until the same player often looked like the wrong player, in the wrong time and moment. If you’re looking for a mercurial personification of a mercurial team, sadly, it’s Jahvon Quinerly.

Not to be discounted in the Tigers’ plight is the loss of Caleb Mills, yet another senior transfer (from Florida State and, before that, Houston) who suffered a catastrophic left-knee injury at Tulsa on January 4th. The team’s best perimeter defender and cultural “glue guy,” Mills embraced a role off the bench and contributed mightily in the Tigers’ four upsets of ranked teams. “I didn’t know Caleb’s magnitude until he went down,” said Hardaway in early February. The Tigers were 12-2 with Mills on the floor and have gone 10-7 without him.

If the loss of Mills exposed a susceptible Tiger rotation, the addition of Nae’Qwan Tomlin — a 6’10” midseason transfer from Kansas State — may have rescued that rotation’s integrity. (Mills and Tomlin only played three games together.) Tomlin’s ability to impose himself on both ends of the floor while providing visible, emotional energy has called to mind the play of former Tiger DeAndre Williams, the all-conference forward who completed his eligibility with the 2022-23 season. He earned Player of the Week honors from the AAC for his impact in wins over Charlotte and FAU in late February. Furthermore, Tomlin has a strong March track record, having helped the Wildcats to the Elite Eight of last year’s NCAA tournament. “He’s a big part of what we’re doing, moving forward,” emphasizes Hardaway. “We need his scoring ability, his rebounding ability, and his shot-blocking.”

However the Tigers’ postseason unfolds, Jones will leave a historic mark on the program. He’s the second consecutive Tiger (after Kendric Davis) to lead the AAC in scoring and earned first-team All-AAC recognition. He’s the only player in the country to average 21.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 2.0 assists and with 26 more points will become only the seventh Memphis player to score 700 in a single season. Jones is among five finalists for the Julius Erving Award, given to the nation’s top small forward.

THE RESOLUTION?

How does this four-month movie — to this point, a tragidrama — conclude before the credits roll? The happiest scenario has the Tigers banding together around their star trio (Jones, Quinerly, and Tomlin) and winning four games in four days at the AAC tournament this week in Fort Worth for an automatic berth in the NCAA tournament. Once in the field, a rocky regular season would be forgotten in exchange for hopes of a glass slipper that leads to the Sweet 16 (at least). Hardaway teams have done this before, both last year when the Tigers knocked off top-ranked Houston to win the AAC crown and in 2021 when Memphis won a scaled-down NIT in North Texas.

A more likely scenario is a win or two this weekend and a return to the NIT, college basketball’s sock hop for those without prom tickets. Not the kind of consolation anyone near the Memphis basketball program will embrace. “God has a plan for this team,” said Hardaway after the Tigers erased a 22-point deficit and beat UAB by 19 on March 3rd. “For all we’ve gone through, I never gave up. … We have a better resume than all these teams: first four out, next four out. I don’t understand why our name isn’t up there. We’ve won enough big games for us to be in the conversation. We have some great wins.”

Remain in your seats, Tiger fans. However this season ends, it’s become clear we don’t want to miss it.

David Jones (Photo: Wes Hale)

The 700 Club

David Jones hopes to become only the seventh Tiger to score 700 points in a single season.

* Larry Finch — 721 (1972-73)

* Penny Hardaway — 729 (1992-93)

* Dajuan Wagner — 762 (2001-02)

* Chris Douglas-Roberts — 724 (2007-08)

* Jeremiah Martin — 708 (2018-19)

* Kendric Davis — 744 (2022-23)

* David Jones — 674 thru March 10th 

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Child Waxing, Penny, and Meme Perfection

Posted to X by Memphis Police Department

Memphis on the internet.

Child Waxing

The MEMernet was aghast this weekend over a viral TikTok that allegedly showed “a minor performing a wax on a nude female,” according to Memphis Police Department (MPD).

According to Memphis Reddit users, the video showed a 7-year-old that performed 24 Brazilian waxes on women in one day at a local salon.

MPD’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force was made aware of the images and an investigation is now underway. Police said, “DO NOT screen save or forward these images to law enforcement or anyone. Please do not download or upload these images in any way.”

File further complaints on the incident to The Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 or Cyber Tip Report.

Penny

Posted to X by @willgtg901

A fake statement announcing Penny Hardaway’s split with the University of Memphis started circulating on X earlier this week. It came after a blowout loss to Southern Methodist University last Sunday that had a frustrated Penny ripping apart his players.

Meme Perfection

Posted to Facebook by Memphis Memes 901