Penny Hardaway says the Tigers are being judged for ‘one really bad half’ of basketball by AP Top 25 voters.

Memphis basketball doesn’t quite understand why the Tigers aren’t ranked as a Top 25 team right now.

Memphis (5-1) has received more votes than any other unranked team in the AP Poll for three consecutive weeks. It received 108 votes this week, but was ousted for programs like No. 21 Mississippi State, which lost to unranked Georgia Tech Tuesday, and No. 24 Illinois, which has yet to defeat a non-buy game opponent.

The Tigers, meanwhile, already own three wins over top 90 KenPom teams just six games into the season—a road triumph at Missouri (No. 81) on Nov. 10 and two neutral court victories over Michigan (No. 53) and Arkansas (No. 47) in the Battle 4 Atlantis last week. Penny Hardaway’s team is also ranked No. 24 in the CBS Sports Top 25 and 1, No. 25 in CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein’s top 45 teams and No. 19 in NCAA correspondent Andy Katz’s Power 36. The one blemish on Memphis’ résumé, however, is evidently too red for AP voters to look past.

Memphis was ran off the floor by Villanova in the first half of the Battle 4 Atlantis championship, and the Tigers lost the game 79-63 after a second half push failed to close the gap. They shot 4-of-27 from the field and 1-of-12 from 3-point range in the game’s first 20 minutes, causing them to trail 44-16 at the break.

Villanova later possessed a 67-32 lead with 9:12 left to play, but then something flipped. Memphis found itself again. It started with an Ashton Hardaway 3-pointer to decrease Nova’s lead to 22. Jahvon Quinerly then made a few baskets. So did David Jones. Quinerly and Jones finished the game with 12 and 13 points respectively. All of a sudden, the Tigers—who shot 53% from the field and 46% from 3-point range in the second half—had gone on a 24-2 run in just under five minutes to cut the Wildcats’ lead to 69-56 with 3:43 to go. The effort obviously wasn’t enough, and Memphis did fall short. But Hardaway still told reporters Thursday that his team’s being judged harshly for its only loss of the season thus far.

“We played five really good halves and one really bad one [in the Battle 4 Atlantis], and we got judged on the one really bad one, which is what it is here in Memphis,” Hardaway said. “We get judged so harshly. We got really tough schedule; and if we don’t win those games, there’s no telling where we’ll drop. We work so hard to get to the top, and all it takes is one loss for us to drop all the way back out of that situation.”

Senior Jaykwon Walton is also confused by where the Tigers currently stand in the rankings. He even felt disrespected after they were left out of Monday’s AP Poll once again. The 6-foot-7 wing is Memphis’ third-leading scorer at 11.5 points and 3.8 rebounds per game while shooting 43.4% from the field and 34.6% from 3-point range.

“I feel like we should’ve been at least top 20 [in the AP Poll],” he said Thursday. “With the two Quad 1 wins we had in those first two days (Michigan and Arkansas in the Battle 4 Atlantis), I definitely think we should be ranked somewhere in the top 20.”

Memphis’ lackluster rebounding comes down to ‘laziness.’

Hardaway, Walton and senior big Jordan Brown also discussed Memphis’ rebounding issues with the media.

It’s undoubtedly been the Tigers’ biggest issue in their first six games, as they’ve been out-rebounded five times and have allowed at least 10 offensive boards in each of those games. Memphis allowed 25 offensive rebounds to Alabama State, 19 to Michigan and 13 to Arkansas. The Wolverines destroyed Memphis on the glass—50 for Michigan to compared to just 28 for Memphis—in the Tigers’ 71-67 victory.

“I think it’s just laziness on our part where guys feel like it’s someone else’s job and not by committee, even though we’ve been preaching it,” Hardaway said.

Walton reiterates this sentiment.

“[We’re] just not really finding a man and boxing out,” he said. “We’re a little bit undersized with me playing the 4, but that’s not an excuse…If we keep giving up offensive rebounds, we can’t get out in transition and run like we want to. And we can’t secure the ball, so that’s definitely one of the problems.”

Brown, a 6-foot-11 transfer from Louisiana, struggled in The Bahamas. He compiled just 10 total points and 10 total rebounds in the Tigers’ three games while playing just 11 minutes per contest. His season totals are now to 6.8 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, a far cry from where he was last season when he won the Lou Henson Award—which is given annually to the country’s best mid-major player.

But Brown, the expected leader of the Tigers’ frontcourt, has a simple plan to fix both Memphis’ rebounding problems and his own issues.

“One thing I really wanna focus on is being a rebounder,” he said. “I know how we are with rebounding, and that’s something that we’re focusing on too. But I wanna make it a personal goal for myself…Just go get them boards.”

Memphis plays Saturday at Ole Miss (1 p.m., ESPN2).