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Memphis basketball keeps winning, but Penny Hardaway stays angry. Here’s why.

Hardaway and Colby Rogers spoke with reporters Wednesday. (Image Credit: Memphis Athletics)
By Roman Cleary - January 22, 2025, 4:38 pm - 0 comments
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Penny Hardaway is in line to have his best season as Memphis basketball’s head coach.

His Tigers, though imperfect, are chugging along in American Athletic Conference (AAC) play. They’ll likely receive a top-6 seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament if they avoid bad losses to their lowly-touted foes before Selection Sunday. Having 10 combined wins in Quads 1 and 2 gives No. 24 Memphis (14-4, 4-1 AAC) such a luxury.

But Hardaway still has plenty of reasons to be annoyed. Memphis lets inferior competition hang around too often, as evidenced by single-digit wins over North Texas, East Carolina and Charlotte this month. Two of those three teams rank outside the top 175 in the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET).

The Tigers also lost at Temple last week after allowing 49 rebounds compared to their 25. Twenty-two of the Owls’ boards came from the offensive glass—nearly matching Memphis’ total rebounding on that end alone. Memphis, which commits 14.4 turnovers per game (No. 327 in Division I), racked up 16 giveaways against Charlotte, which helped the 49ers trim a 22-point lead down to 9 by the final buzzer.

Hardaway told reporters Wednesday he’s running a proverbial full-court press to shore up the Tigers’ bad habits.

“Every time we turn the ball over in practice, it’s either Indian run, a 17 or pushups. So, they’re being more conscious of what they’re doing now. It’s just laziness of understanding what we’re trying to do,” Hardaway, who gradually fills a ball rack as the Tigers commit giveaways during practices, said. “If the ball rack gets filled up, that’s the worst running…That’s a lot of balls to fill that ball rack up, so if you got that many turnovers in practice—and we’re trying to work on it—that’s not good focus. It’s about the focus.”

KenPom favors Memphis to win all 13 games left on its schedule. The Tigers are a double-digit favorite in nine of those. They aren’t currently projected to get a single Quad 1 or 2 opportunity in that span, meaning that their resume probably worsens each time Moussa Cisse tips the ball off.

Hardaway is still highly motivated to thrive in what he calls an unfair situation. Keeping his players enthused is a taxing endeavor, though.

“You want them to stay angry. You want them to stay conscious of what’s going on at all times. We’re trying to build for the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “I stay angry, because this is my seventh year and we’ve never won the regular season [AAC championship]. I wanna win the regular season, so that motivates me and pushes me. But for the guys who’ve only been here nine months, you just have to go one game at a time.

“It’s so tough, because [the nation doesn’t] respect our conference. We’re favored by double digits in 95% of our games, and that’s unfair. And then we do win those games—[but] if you don’t win ’em by 20, then you fall in the rankings or you fall in the KenPom. So, it’s very difficult.”

Colby Rogers is all business headed into Wichita State reunion

The 6-foot-3 guard averaged 16.4 points and 3.4 rebounds while shooting 40% from the field and 40.9% from 3-point range in his lone campaign with the Shockers last year. He faced Memphis three times in 2023-24, and helped eliminate Hardaway’s club from the AAC Tournament.

But Rogers, now a Tiger, doesn’t have Thursday’s reunion with Wichita State (6 p.m., ESPN2) circled on his calendar. It’s just another game for him.

“Business as normal,” he said. “It’s on our schedule. Obviously, it’s a game we gotta win. Obviously, I’m going to take it very seriously. But like I said, I don’t think there’s extra motivation. It’s just a conference game we need to win. It’s a home game we need to win, and that’s what I expect to do.”

Rogers (11.7 points per game) knows his former WSU teammates feel differently, though. For one, he still keeps in touch with current Shockers like Xavier Bell, Ronnie DeGray III, Bijan Cortes and Quincy Ballard. He also recalls feeling particularly excited for his matchups with the Tigers last season.

Hardaway has constantly said this year that Memphis is the crown-jewel, or the “Super Bowl,” for the rest of the AAC. Rogers—having been on both sides now—fully attests to that.

“[Hardaway is] spot-on. Me being on the other side, I had Memphis circled for sure,” he said. “I know exactly how most teams feel when they do play us and we’re coming up on the schedule. Like Coach always says, we have to continue to be the hunters and not the hunted. As long as we keep that mindset, then I think we’ll be fine.”

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