With the University of Memphis marking a centennial of basketball, the time is right for a look at the 10 greatest individual seasons in program history. Here they are.
10) Dajuan Wagner (2001-02) — Wagner’s abbreviated NBA career has left him somewhat of a footnote in the sport’s history, but his one college season was memorable for two reasons. His 762 points are the most ever scored by a Memphis player in one campaign and he finished the season raising a “national championship” trophy, having led the Tigers to victory in the NIT at Madison Square Garden.
9) Jeremiah Martin (2018-19) — Until Martin’s senior season, seven Memphis players had scored 40 points in a game, but no one had done so twice. Martin scored 40 points twice in the month of February (the first time in a single half). A player who averaged 2.7 points as a freshman became just the fifth Tiger to score 700 points in a season.
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Larry Kenon
8) Andre Turner (1985-86) — The Little General averaged 7.7 assists per game in the first season After Keith Lee. In the 34 years since, no Tiger has averaged as many as 7.0 and only two have hit the 6.0 mark (Penny Hardaway and Chris Garner). Turner also averaged 13.9 points, joined the 1,000-point club, and helped the Tigers to a fifth straight appearance in the NCAA tournament.
7) Forest Arnold (1955-56) — Arnold is one of only two Tigers to rank among the program’s top 10 in both scoring average (21.2, seventh) and rebounding average (13.5, fourth) from the same season. His 46 points against Hardin-Simmons on December 7, 1955, are the second-most for a single game in Memphis history. (Larry Finch scored 48 in a 1973 game.)
6) Chris Douglas-Roberts (2007-08) — CDR became only the third Memphis player to earn first-team All-America honors from the AP and did so sharing the floor with a man (Derrick Rose) who would be the top pick in the 2008 NBA draft. His 724 points rank third in Tiger history and he might be even higher on this last had he not missed a pair of late free throws in the national championship against Kansas.
5) Win Wilfong (1956-57) — Wilfong averaged 21.0 points and 12.4 rebounds (63 years later, both figures rank among the Tigers’ top 10). He led Memphis State to the NIT final and earned MVP honors with 31 points despite the Tigers’ loss to Bradley. Converse named him first-team All-America.
4) Keith Lee (1984-85) — You could really take your pick from Lee’s four Tiger seasons, but we’ll go with his senior campaign, one that earned the West Memphis native first-team All-America recognition from the AP. Lee averaged 19.7 points and 9.2 rebounds in leading the Tigers to the first 30-win season in program history and their second Final Four appearance.
3) Larry Finch (1972-73) — To this day, no Tiger has averaged more than Finch’s 24.0 points per game over the course of a season. (Finch’s 23.9 average from the 1971-72 campaign ranks second.) I’ve heard it said by several that he would have averaged 30 points with a three-point line. He was the first Tiger to top 700 points for a season, capped off by 29 against UCLA in the national championship.
2) Penny Hardaway (1992-93) — Hardaway broke his coach’s single-season scoring record with 729 points while also becoming just the second Tiger to dish out 200 assists in a season. Over three days in early January, Hardaway became the first (and still only) Tiger to post two triple-doubles. He was named first-team All-America by the AP, only the second Tiger to be so honored.
1) Larry Kenon (1972-73) — Kenon is the only Tiger player to have his jersey number retired for only one season of actually wearing it. And that season was good enough to top this list. Kenon is the only Tiger to pull down as many as 400 rebounds in a season, and he had 501. (Ronnie Robinson’s junior and sophomore seasons are second and fourth on the chart, respectively, but his senior year, Kenon pulled down anything round or orange.) Kenon had 25 double-doubles in 30 games, averaging 20.1 points and 16.7 rebounds. As great as Finch and Robinson were, those Tigers don’t reach the Final Four without Larry Kenon.
