2023-24 seemed like a year of destiny for Memphis basketball not too long ago.
After more than a decade of futility and heartbreak, the Tigers began this season in magical fashion. They beat Missouri, Texas A&M and VCU on the road. They defeated Clemson and Virginia inside FedExForum. They even made it to the Battle 4 Atlantis championship game in November.
By the turn of the new year, Memphis was 10-2 after running through a relentless non-conference schedule. All it had to do then was take care of American Athletic Conference (AAC) play, and a top-5 seed in the NCAA Tournament was all but guaranteed.
Little did we know that was more of a pipedream than anyone could’ve imagined.
Penny Hardaway’s team was No. 10 in the Associated Press (AP) Top 25 two weeks ago. But it’s now teetering on the NCAA Tournament bubble after losing its fourth AAC game in a row, its most recent shortcoming being the worst one yet—not just from this season, but possibly in all of Hardaway’s six-year tenure.
The Tigers (15-6, 4-4 AAC) fell against Rice 74-71 inside FedExForum Wednesday night. The Owls (8-13, 2-6 AAC) were 0-10 against Quads 1 through 3, and ranked No. 248 in the NCAA NET rankings heading into the contest. The loss perhaps signifies rock bottom for Hardaway’s faltering team, though he isn’t sure how it even got to this point.
“I really can’t get my finger on it. It’s like something has shifted since we started conference [play],” he said Wednesday. “I don’t know if it’s watching social media, if it’s trying to get more shine…We’re being taught the right stuff, but we’re not doing it. I don’t know why now, though. There’s gotta be something in this, because losing four games like this—it’s not like it’s never happened to me here. But with this team and this way, it just seems like it’s going downhill when the game first starts. That’s very weird.”
Many of the Tigers’ recent problems showed up versus Rice. They turned the ball over 16 times, and allowed the Owls to shoot 48% from 3-point range while having a 17% 3-point clip themselves. Scott Pera’s team also had 10 offensive rebounds, and limited Memphis to just 10 assists.
Hardaway’s club looked selfish, discombobulated and flat-out ugly at times during the game—leaving the sixth-year coach to once again ponder about how things went so wrong so abruptly.
“It just seems like a huge disconnect with this group right now. I can’t put my finger on it—like a humongous disconnect. And you can tell in our play,” he said. “To me when the game starts, it just feels like the energy isn’t there to go win the game. It’s like surviving until another team gives up.”
David Jones, the Tigers’ leading score, said they will sometimes stray from Hardaway’s gameplans on Jan. 25. Hardaway chose to bring back Jordan Brown in mid-January—reportedly against most players’ wishes—after the 6-foot-11 center’s month-long absence. Memphis’ head coach has even alluded to possible locker room issues throughout the past two weeks.
But despite all that and more, Hardaway says there’s no friction between him and his players. The “humongous disconnect” he refers to is strictly between the Tigers.
“I’m really close to my players. I’m more than a head coach to these guys,” he said. “I have no disconnect with my players, I promise you. It’s not that. If it was, I would honestly say it like, ‘Man, I have a disconnect.’ We just have not figured out a way to get this done, especially in the last four games. Every game has been like pulling teeth from the beginning of the tipoff until the end.”
Point guard Jahvon Quinerly reiterated Hardaway’s sentiment.
“There’s no disconnect between us and coach,” Quinerly said Wednesday. “This is on us. This is on the players. We got a veteran group. We should be able to talk to each other on the floor and not have a negative reaction. We’re old enough, mature enough. That shouldn’t be a problem…I really think coach Penny had us prepared the last two weeks for these games, and we dropped the ball…It’s time we looked ourselves in the mirror and take responsibility.”
Memphis now gets set to face the last opponent it beat before this four-game slide began: Wichita State. The Tigers host the Shockers inside FedExForum on Saturday afternoon (12 p.m., CBS). A lot has changed since Memphis beat Paul Mills’ team 112-86 at Charles Koch Arena on Jan. 14, most of it for the worse.
But Hardaway, Quinerly and the Tigers still have faith despite that. They still believe in themselves, even if few people do anymore.
“I think this will be the turning point for us,” Quinerly said. “Feeling like this for the last two weeks, it’s a lot…I think we’ll grow from this. I really do.”