Penny Hardaway had the table set for a winter of feasting on the hardwood. To take the metaphor further, the University of Memphis basketball coach had a pair of top-five recruits to serve as the meat and potatoes for his 2021-22 team, a healthy number of veterans to provide vitamins and minerals, and for dessert, a Hall of Fame assistant coach, here to sweeten Hardaway’s game-day tactical skills. Year four of the Coach Hardaway Era merely needed to seat the guests.
Then along came Iowa State. And Georgia. And Ole Miss. In a matter of nine days — and not yet officially winter — the Tiger table was toppled.
How bad are things, truly? How close to the panic button should Tiger fans have their fingers? There’s no getting around it: Losses to the Cyclones, Dawgs, and Rebels shouldn’t have happened, not if you look at the respective rosters “on paper.” If Memphis can’t beat teams like Georgia (2-5 and missing its point guard), the Tigers will not be playing on the second weekend of the NCAA tournament … the minimum expectation for this year’s team.
Forget tactics and strategy, though. Here are three intangibles the Memphis Tigers must confront and consider if their season is to be salvaged.
Ego. Every member of the Tigers’ rotation was the star of his high school (or AAU) team. And every member of the Tigers’ rotation is not as good at basketball as he thinks he is right now. Same goes for the head coach, or he wouldn’t be examining film from a three-game losing streak. Among this group of nine or 10 men, who can suppress his ego over the next three months for the better of his team’s mission? Can Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren forget their current NBA stock (it’s falling), and work at being more valuable to the Tigers’ cause when no one besides their teammates and coaches is watching? Can senior DeAndre Williams give up playing time for a freshman (Josh Minott)? Can fundamentals — crisp passing, floor spacing, moving without the ball — take priority over “highlight plays”? Can the city’s most popular basketball presence acknowledge shortcomings long enough to improve the atmosphere surrounding his team? These are big questions for the winter ahead.
Patience. This seems counterintuitive. A quarter of the Tigers’ regular season is history. If a 5-3 team aspires to play in the NCAA tournament, it needs to get better right now. But here’s the uncomfortable catch: Memphis will not play its best basketball of the season this Friday when Murray State visits FedExForum. And that shouldn’t be expected. The assignment from the coaching staff must be to play better basketball than they did in last Saturday’s loss at Ole Miss. Steady improvement will bring wins, not every game, but in several games … if the improvement is steady. And this is where the Tigers face their largest mental challenge. Young men are impatient. Teenagers like Bates and Duren don’t know how to spell the word. Performance equals reward … that’s the world young basketball stars know and understand. But that’s not reality for the Tiger team currently taking the floor. This is a group that must climb a ladder toward success, toward its best group effort. We won’t see it in December, but might we in March?
Resolve. The Tigers’ next three games — Murray State, Alabama, and Tennessee — will be more challenging than the last three. Yikes. Memphis could enter conference play (December 29th at Tulane) with a record at or below .500. The Tigers will not likely reappear in the Top 25 until they reel off a few wins against American Athletic Conference rivals. And this is the key to everything. If Memphis can win the AAC (regular season or tournament), the Tigers will play in the Big Dance. Coaches picked them to finish second (behind Houston). The way they’ve looked of late, a top-three finish would be a surprise. So surprise the world. No one relishes being overlooked — the dis, the snub — more than a Memphis Tiger. It’s part of the culture that sticks to this team, one season or coach after another. Can Penny Hardaway and his band of talented players keep their eyes on the AAC prize? The Tiger basketball program has yet to raise AAC hardware. However painful their last three games may feel, this Memphis team can still make history.
