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Jeff Borzello
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — There are certain things you have to prepare for when your coach is one of the most gifted talents to ever play the sport. Take it from Memphis Tigers guard Tyrese Hunter.
During a pregame shootaround the morning of the Tigers’ January game against Wichita State, Penny Hardaway — a four-time NBA All-Star who is in his seventh season as the head coach of his alma mater — was showing Hunter how to make a certain pass against a zone.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to get you to do,” Hardaway said while demonstrating what he wanted Hunter to do. “You say, ‘No I can’t.’ Yes you can.”
It’s the type of sentiment the Tigers have heard often.
“His brain is through the roof,” Hunter told ESPN about his legendary coach. “He sees plays and you don’t even know what happened. He sees stuff develop before it develops and it’s crazy.”
It’s not only with the players in the same positions as the three-time All-NBA guard.
“You’re dealing with someone whose mind is on the upper echelon,” forward Nicholas Jourdain said. “Perfection is what it’s all about. When someone’s able to see the game the way he sees it, it’s like, how did you not know to make that play?”
As valuable as his NBA experience looks on paper, Hardaway now views that basketball IQ as having held him back early in his college coaching career. When he returned to Memphis in 2018, Hardaway thought being a basketball savant was enough.
“I just thought it was going to be easier because I knew the game,” Hardaway told ESPN in January. “I knew the game at a high level … but what I didn’t know is how hard it was going to be to win any game on this level. I was always a preparation guy. I was always an X’s and O’s guy. I was always a teacher, a developer. But understanding how to win on this level is different.”
Seven seasons into his college coaching career, Hardaway is still learning, still figuring things out — but he’s also comfortable for seemingly the first time since replacing Tubby Smith. Now a year removed from missing the NCAA tournament altogether after a hot start, Hardaway has the Tigers securely inside the AP Top 25 and on track for their best NCAA tournament seed since John Calipari took them as a 2-seed in 2009.
And the key to this season’s success? Hardaway has an entirely new roster, coaching staff and administration that has allowed him to build the program as he sees fit with his newfound appreciation for what it takes to win at this level.
“I’m believing in what I do,” Hardaway said.
“This is Memphis,” Hardaway famously said in 2019 after landing the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class. “We don’t bluff. We want all the smoke.”
That attitude was a direct reflection of the considerable expectations his hometown had of him. Hardaway is a Memphis native who played college ball for the Tigers before returning as the face of amateur basketball in the city following his 14-year run in the NBA, coaching at East High School and running the Nike-sponsored grassroots team, Team Penny.
Due to his cachet among high school prospects — his name, his popularity, his connections — Hardaway was expected to make Memphis a talent hotbed. And that did happen almost immediately: The No. 1 prospect of the 2019 class, James Wiseman, and two more five-star prospects headlined the sport’s top recruiting class just 14 months after Hardaway took the job.
“I went through a phase where I only wanted the best high school players,” Hardaway said. “It was just talent and I get all these McDonald’s All Americans and these lottery picks because that’s what you wanted when you first came.”
But the offseason trophies didn’t translate to high-level in-season success. Memphis didn’t go to the NCAA tournament in any of Hardaway’s first three seasons at the helm, despite winning at least 20 games in all three seasons. Then constant drama followed him over the next three.
In September 2020, the NCAA launched an investigation into alleged violations involving Wiseman and other recruits; 18 months later, the independent accountability resolution process eventually concluded Hardaway didn’t violate NCAA rules because of his long-standing philanthropy in Memphis.
The NCAA did suspend Hardaway for three games heading into the 2023-24 season, though, as the result of a separate investigation into two 2021 visits with a high school junior that took place in the prospect’s home against NCAA rules, which dictate coaches can only have in-person contact with high school juniors at their school. (Hardaway told the NCAA he was unaware of the rule at the time.)
Amid the off-court tumult between the 2020-21 and 2023-24 seasons, Hardaway did punch his first NCAA tournament tickets as a head coach, taking the Tigers as an 8-seed in 2022 then a 9-seed in 2023. But the hot seat chatter started to ramp up when he couldn’t take them to a third in 2024 — especially since it had the makings to be their best Hardaway season yet.
The Tigers were sitting at No. 10 in the AP poll on Jan. 15, 2024, after beating Wichita State on the road by 26 points to bring their record to 15-2 overall and 4-0 in the AAC. But their campaign quickly unraveled from there, going 7-8 the rest of the way to completely miss the postseason and finish with the lowest KenPom ranking (No. 76) of Hardaway’s career.
Six seasons into his tenure with only one NCAA tournament win and investigations looming over the program, Memphis’ recruiting pipeline — which was supposed to be Hardaway’s selling point — had dried up. The Tigers haven’t landed a five-star recruit since Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren in 2021.
Moreover, the identity of Hardaway’s early teams had disappeared. Even when the Tigers weren’t going to the NCAA tournament, they were aggressive defensively, extending full-court in some cases and generally being a nuisance for opponents. They ranked No. 5 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency in 2020 and No. 1 in 2021. But they fell all the way to No. 104 by the end of the 2023-24 season.
Things were becoming untenable in Memphis, and it was about to get worse.
Toward the end of last season, Jourdain went on a local radio show and was asked whether he would return to Memphis this season. He was taken aback at first, assuming it was obvious that he would play for the Tigers in 2024-25.
A couple weeks later, Jourdain was the only player left on the roster as David Jones left for the NBA and five others entered the transfer portal. It was clear Hardaway was entering a make-or-break year for his future at Memphis, but he now had an opportunity to start fresh — with his roster and his bosses.
“Coach kind of told me that he wanted to recruit a certain type of guys,” Jourdain said. “Hardworking guys, really defensive guys. People to create something that matches his culture and what he wants his team to be. And I’m kind of seeing it come into fruition now.”
“I wanted character first,” Hardaway added. “I wanted toughness second and it’s like talent came after that.”
Hardaway didn’t go into his roster rebuild blind. The pillars of this season’s roster are players he already knew well. Three of the Tigers’ top-four scorers were previous opponents: PJ Haggerty, this past season’s Kyle Macy National Freshman of the Year, left Tulsa for Memphis. Another AAC player, Colby Rogers, joined from Wichita State. And Hardaway lost a November 2021 matchup to then-freshman Tyrese Hunter’s Iowa State team.
Hardaway also had familiarity with the Tigers’ most impactful contributors off the bench, with another AAC transfer in PJ Carter making the move from UTSA and Moussa Cisse, a former Memphis player, returning after stints at Oklahoma State and Ole Miss.
“I’m not going to ignore talent totally, if it’s good character talent,” Hardaway later told ESPN. “When I talked to the guys on the phone while recruiting them and then coming on their visits, the answers that they gave me about how they feel about the culture, putting the team first, how would you handle [certain] situations and all these different questions — every last one of them answered them perfectly.”
Hardaway wanted to strike a balance between classes, mixing a few players with only one year left of eligibility with players who still had time to develop and mature, such as four-star recruit Jared Harris.
Despite the flash of positivity around the Tigers roster, the perception from the outside was still one of increasing pressure on Hardaway — Memphis later confirmed the existence of an anonymous letter alleging more NCAA violations within the Tigers’ program — but the tone was different behind closed doors. Memphis’ new athletic director and the third of Hardaway’s tenure, Ed Scott, was actually insulating the Tigers’ head coach following his July hiring.
“Penny was the coach I inherited,” Scott told ESPN. “Before I can make any decision, I have to give him what he thinks he needs to be successful. That was my approach … [How can we make] Penny Hardaway the best basketball coach Penny Hardaway can be?”
To start equipping Hardaway with the right tools, in August of 2024, Scott hired former New Orleans athletic director Tim Duncan — who had pursued the opening at Memphis before it was ultimately rewarded to Scott — to be the Tigers’ senior deputy athletics director, effectively putting Duncan in position to oversee men’s basketball. And here was the kicker: Duncan is not only a Memphis native but also a former teammate and roommate of Hardaway when the pair played for Larry Finch on the 1992 Memphis team that reached the Elite Eight.
The message from Scott and Duncan to Hardaway was clear: Make the changes you need.
At that point, Hardaway was already comfortable with the core of his 2024-25 roster. That meant his staff was next.
“It goes back to having a relationship with your coach,” Scott said. “What do you think you need in order to achieve these expectations? He said, ‘I don’t know if my staff is the right staff. I need to make some personnel moves.’ Do what you need to do. It was his decision and my job is to support him in doing it the right way. It wasn’t an easy decision but it was the right decision.”
Two weeks after Duncan was hired, Hardaway announced the firing of three assistant coaches and a special adviser. And two weeks after that, he introduced longtime college head coach Mike Davis as well as former Duke and Louisville assistant Nolan Smith as the headliners of the Tigers’ new staff.
“This is your staff, do what you need to do,” Duncan said. “People were alarmed, things were swirling. We were providing him with the support that he wanted and needed to make those changes, those necessary changes. Coaches have to have chemistry or you can never be on the same page, regardless of talent. I ask him, how’s the chemistry of the staff? [He says] it’s the best it’s ever been.
“On the outside it was chaotic. But on the inside that was him centering and becoming confident.”
For Hardaway, it’s been a breath of fresh air compared to the ADs who came before Scott.
“I’ve stopped being so stressed,” he said.
Hardaway didn’t hesitate when asked if this was the most comfortable he’s been during his time as the head coach at Memphis.
“By a long shot,” he said.
It’s been a fresh start across the board for Hardaway, who now has a deeper appreciation for what it takes to be a successful college basketball coach.
“I’ve learned from every situation,” Hardaway said. “I’ve taken from every coach that I’ve won against or lost against and just taken things that I’ve liked from every coach. Their approach, their offense, their defense, their philosophy, whatever. And just blended it over my years here at Memphis.”
The Tigers’ early wins set the tone for this season. A season-opening victory over Missouri as well as wins over UConn and Michigan State at the Maui Invitational in November have all aged well. Victories at Clemson and at home against Ole Miss have strengthened a résumé that gave Memphis plenty of leeway in AAC play, ultimately helping to mitigate a surprising home loss to Arkansas State in early December.
“We wanted to show people that we could play with the best,” Hardaway said of his non-conference schedule. “You really have to get winners because they know what it takes. They know what hard looks like. I thought the guys that hadn’t won would be so hungry for it. ‘I want it. I want it.’ No, because when you’ve lost, you accept losing. We don’t want to accept losing because it’ll avalanche. It’ll be a snowball effect.”
Haggerty (21.7 points per game) has been arguably the best transfer in the country, while Hunter (14.5 PPG) is having the best offensive season of his collegiate career and Rogers (10.9 PPG) is proving to be a capable shot-maker. Dainja (12.2 PPG) is also becoming a force down the stretch, giving the Tigers an interior presence to balance out the nation’s No. 1 3-point shooting team on the perimeter.
But two key areas of improvement that Hardaway earmarked heading into the season — defense and culture — have been the difference-makers.
Memphis has the best defense in the AAC, ranking inside the top 50 nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, forcing turnovers on more than 20% of its defensive possessions. Only four of the Tigers’ past 12 opponents have scored more than one point per possession.
“I think we have a lot of guys that take it as disrespect getting scored on, and they take pride in their defense, which means a lot,” Jourdain said.
Hardaway added that the Tigers have been more aggressive at that end of the floor, pressuring more and looking to make opponents more uncomfortable.
“No one was really gung-ho about how I disrupted and press because it is unusual,” he said. “That was my style, so I’ve kind of gotten back to me.”
The disgruntled locker rooms also seem to be a thing of the past. Players point to the fact that the entire team arrived on campus this past June to start working out, compared to when players previously joined at different times, some as late as August. Jourdain says the team practices harder than this past season, with a more healthy mix of freedom and seriousness than this past year.
Hunter adds that it’s one of the closest teams he’s been on.
“I’ve changed my approach on how I’ve handled the culture,” Hardaway said. “I don’t let anything fly anymore. I used to be just a player’s coach. I’m way stricter — but fair.”
Memphis is keenly aware of how this past season unraveled and is eager to avoid a repeat.
The Tigers, who were picked second in the preseason AAC poll, suffered an 88-81 road loss to Temple on Jan. 16, almost exactly a year after a loss to South Florida snowballed into a four-game losing streak, with the wheels coming off not long after that. But with one of the most veteran teams in the country this season — the Tigers are sixth in Division I experience, according to KenPom — Memphis made sure that mid-January loss didn’t turn into a streak.
Hunter called a players-only meeting after the defeat at Temple in mid-January.
“Man, we just got to look ourselves in the mirror,” he told the team. “We can’t be the ones that’s got our backs against the ropes the whole game. And we know we’re better than that.”
“It wasn’t like the thought process was, ‘Oh it’s impossible. We’re not going to lose two games in a row.’ It was, ‘We can’t lose two games a row,” Jourdain added. “We went out and we put the work in and we brought the focus to where it was a refusal. We will not lose this second game in a row.”
Memphis hasn’t lost since.
“I think we all just took ownership of what we got to do better for the next game,” Haggerty said. “I think we started off being the hunters and now we’re the hunted.”
Now comes the hard part: translating that personal development on the court to reach the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.
Hardaway is obsessed with the idea of advancing to the Sweet 16, which the program hasn’t done since Calipari’s final season with the Tigers in 2009. He has spoken ad nauseam about avoiding the 8- vs. 9-seed game in the first round, since it would pit the Tigers against a 1-seed in the second round — the exact position Memphis has ended up in each of its past two tournament appearances, suffering a pair of heartbreaking losses to 1-seed Gonzaga in the second round of 2022 and 8-seed Florida Atlantic in the first round of 2023.
Hardaway constantly replays both of those games in his mind, particularly the FAU defeat, as the Owls went on to advance all the way to the Final Four.
“We had our teams prepared in both games and we just didn’t seal the deal,” he said, with more than a tinge of regret in his voice. “We didn’t finish it.”
Memphis is poised to receive a more advantageous seeding this Selection Sunday, currently sitting in the 4-5 range of ESPN’s latest Bracketology. The Tigers’ collection of high-quality wins outweighs their questionable losses and middling efficiency-based metrics, and their offensive firepower gives them a legitimate chance to win at least two games come March.
A deep tournament run would validate success for Hardaway’s coaching career but could also be viewed as the next phase in the natural progression for a coach who needed to tear everything down and start from scratch in order to reach his full potential.
Getting his hometown school, his alma mater, to the Sweet 16 would just be the next step.
“I’ve never wavered. I’ve never flinched. I’ve stayed the course,” he said. “I’ve taken so many punches, but I knew what I could do. I knew what we could do. It just makes me proud that I’ve overcome a ton. I had to get through a lot. My mom going through throat cancer, all the negative media, the hot seat, staff changes, all this different stuff. And to weather that and to be here now, it takes a lot. And I’m still standing. I’m definitely proud of that.”