In the span of a couple of weeks, Memphis has gone from basically being an after-thought to a team we must watch in the 2021-22 season. We’ve been here before with them under Penny Hardaway, but this time might be a little different coming in.
Two years ago, Hardaway landed the top prospect in the class in James Wiseman, along with several other top prospects. They had the best group of newcomers in the country, and expectations soared. When Hardaway started talking about winning a national championship with that team, the stakes were raised higher, perhaps unfairly so. You can’t fault a coach for having high expectations of his team, but to put that out there and let everyone else measure them against that probably didn’t help.
In the end, there were questions about Hardaway as a coach when the Tigers were almost certainly an NIT team at best before the postseason was canceled due to COVID-19. But considering what happened that season – Wiseman only played three games due to NCAA issues, D.J. Jeffries missed the final month of the season with a knee injury and Lester Quinones missed five games early on with a broken hand – Hardaway did a good job with what he ultimately had as they won 21 games before the season was canceled.
Now entering his fourth season at the helm of his alma mater, Hardaway is 63-32, but with only two NIT appearances including a championship last season. While it wouldn’t make sense for him to be on the hot seat, this is a key season shaping up how his tenure may go, even more so now that his team got a big injection of talent.
First, Memphis landed Jalen Duren, by most accounts one of the top two prospects in the high school class of 2022. He decided to re-classify and play for Hardaway, and once that happened, the big question was if he would be joined by Emoni Bates, who was right with Duren in the Class of 2022. Last week, Bates made that decision, and now the Tigers look like the team to beat in the American Athletic Conference and one to watch nationally.
While much attention will be on Bates and Duren, the Tigers also return an all-conference star in Landers Nolley II and versatile senior DeAndre Williams, along with the real keys to this team in Quinones and Alex Lomax. Newcomer brothers Chandler and Johnathan Lawson, the former of who transfer in from Oregon, just add to the talent. The Lawson brothers are the second set to play at the school after Dedric and K.J. played there several years ago, and the Tigers will hope this ends a little better as both of those brothers transferred before their college careers were over.
Quinones and Lomax are the keys because guards rule college basketball, and plenty of teams have been loaded up front but not so much in the backcourt and subsequently underachieved. In Memphis’ case, Quinones and Lomax certainly don’t lack talent or experience, but they have to play to their talent and stay healthy. Bates will surely get a crack at being the primary ball handler, and even if he becomes that, a good year from the guards will take some pressure off Bates.
Memphis and Houston should battle it out for the top of the American Athletic Conference, but both should be players nationally as well. There is enough talent here to do so, and this time around the Tigers won’t be as green as they were a couple of years ago, when they were dominated by freshmen. This is an older, more proven team, though not all of that time has been spent playing together, and even teams loaded with freshmen talent have needed veterans to go far in college basketball. Kentucky in 2012 and Duke in 2015 stand as examples with the key seniors they had to complement their ballyhooed freshmen.
For all the questions about Hardaway to this point that include the idea that he has underachieved at his alma mater, he has done a good job in all. His teams have been very good defensively, and a repeat of that performance this time around should give them plenty of chances to rack up the wins, including quality ones to get them into the NCAA Tournament. He has coached teams through plenty of adversity, and they don’t quit on him. While he didn’t follow up the big recruiting class of two years ago with another one last year, he got a lot out of that team all the same and in a tough season in which to do so.
That should be kept in mind when evaluating the Tigers for the coming season. The Tigers were not talked about much in discussion of the season until recently, having watched American Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year Moussa Cisse and Sixth Man of the Year Boogie Ellis transfer since last season ended. That makes two years in a row that a Tiger won the conference’s Freshman of the Year award, and there’s every reason to think that streak will hit three this season. But with those two having left, the Tigers really had more questions than answers from a personnel standpoint.
One similarity to two years ago will now be that much will be expected of Memphis this coming season. Looking at their talent, their experience and what Penny Hardaway has done in establishing a culture all adds up to a lot of reason to believe that this team will fare better than the one two years ago whose expectations were also sky-high because of talented freshmen.