Why Penny Hardaway says Memphis’ early-season success won’t help the Tigers’ NCAA Tournament seeding

Memphis basketball is off to its best start of head coach Penny Hardaway’s tenure.

The Tigers (5-0) own a road victory against Missouri, and two neutral court victories in the Battle 4 Atlantis against Michigan and Arkansas. Those three schools are ranked No. 87, 40 and 38 respectively in KenPom. Memphis—which is No. 27 in the computer metric—gets another quality opportunity against Villanova (No. 19 in KenPom) Friday afternoon in the Battle 4 Atlantis Championship (2:30 p.m., ESPN).

Hardaway’s club has also received more votes in the AP Top 25 poll than any other unranked team in each of the past two weeks, is ranked No. 17 in the CBS Sports Top 25 and 1 and looks destined for a nod from the AP voters after its wins in The Bahamas.

But Hardaway has doubts that these early-season, résumé-building wins will actually help the Tigers get a good NCAA Tournament seed-line come Selection Sunday in March.

“To be honest, I don’t really know how it helps us in seeding because we have to do so much to get just very little,” he said Thursday. “That’s the motivation for us. I respect the committee and how they choose. We’re [ranked] 26th. I feel like we deserve to be in the Top 25. But when it didn’t happen, it was like ‘ok, let’s just keep playing.’ We can’t play for the rankings, even though you want that. We do want a good seed. If we earn that, we do want that. I don’t know if we’ll get that because [the selection committee is] used to seeing us at around 8, 9 or 10 [seed]. But these wins are big wins early. They usually reward teams that do that. So, we’ll just see. I know that we still got work to do, but we know we have to earn everything.”

David Jones’ career night, plus a solid performance from Nick Jourdain.

Jones has arguably been Memphis’ star player in the Tigers’ first five outings, but he was undeniably the best player on the floor against Arkansas.

The St. John’s transfer had a career night with 36 points while shooting 10-for-14 from the field 4-of-8 from 3-point range, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 5 steals. Jones scored 17 in the first half while shooting 6-of-6 from the field, including his second buzzer-beating 3-pointer in three games to give Memphis a 42-37 halftime lead. His humility, however, remains just as evident as his excellent play.

“I feel good. We got the win. That’s all that matters,” Jones said. “[Hardaway] gives us all the confidence in the world to just go out there and play hard. In my mind, it was the defense. Every single game, he just talks about defense. I just came out there to play defense and I started making shots. He just told me to keep going.”

The 6-foot-6 wing may be selling himself a little short in that assessment, though. A lot goes into producing performances like the one Jones had Thursday, such as a tremendous work ethic.

“We have to kick [Jones] out of the gym,” Hardaway said. “We have to make him get rest because he’s always in the gym. He always wants to work, and his hard work is paying off. I don’t know how much of this he did at St. John’s. I don’t know how much of this he did at DePaul. But since he’s come to Memphis, he is a guy that’s always in the gym getting shots up. And he’s being rewarded for that now.”

It’s hard to standout when Jones—or anyone—has the type of performance he had against the Razorbacks. But Jourdain, a 6-foot-8 Temple transfer, tried his best.

The Clifton, N.J. native compiled 12 points, 3 rebounds and 2 blocks on 5-of-5 shooting in just 20 minutes on the floor. He also made many other impactful plays that won’t show up on the stat sheet, whether that be hustling for the ball, contesting scorers at the rim or pushing the ball ahead to his teammates on the fastbreak—even if it means sacrificing some of his own production.

“David took some of my steals,” Jourdain said, causing a chuckle from Jones. “I tapped the ball out to him, so he got 5 steals.”

Jourdain did it all for the Tigers on Thanksgiving, and Hardaway is quite thankful for that.

“[Jourdain’s] value is there every night, because he’s willing to do what it takes,” Hardaway said. “He’s getting more aggressive [in] scoring because he’s working on his game as well…His work is showing. I’m proud of him, and I’m always happy for him when that shot is going down because his value is huge for us. He’s gonna play hard regardless of what the situation is.”