We’re nearly halfway through the Memphis basketball season, and despite being on a three-game winning streak, the current trajectory of the program seems off. Attendance is down, the product on the court isn’t what Memphis fans expect, and the lack of success doesn’t feel like Memphis basketball anymore; it feels like a program with hope slowly slipping away despite having one of our own at the helm. Saturday with a road game at Rice, Memphis won its third game in a row, but it was ugly; it might have been a trap game, but in front of maybe 500 people against a team that lost a few days prior by 49 to Tulsa, winning by six points just isn’t cutting it by the Memphis standard. The solution might be a bit more complicated, but there is hope deep in the heart of the program that Memphis could run through the American with limited resistance and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. 

The mere subject of discussing the obvious is a sensitive subject around Tiger Nation, but it’s one that needs to be addressed. The solution is not easy, but a program with this much pride and tradition deserves a product on the court that represents the city they put on for. Given that this isn’t all Coach Hardaway’s fault, that’s why this thing is so complicated. The roster hasn’t hit this year, and in today’s college basketball, a group of transfers that don’t perform to the standard they were recruited is a near-death sentence for any team. However, Coach Penny Hardaway is the coach, and at the end of the day, he is the one who answers for the lack of success on the hardwood. With that, although ugly, Memphis is on a three-game winning streak, and the season could be in the midst of turning around and delivering Memphis another American championship and another bid to the NCAA Tournament. 

Fixing the problem is complicated and has many layers. 

Some have started to have a conversation about the future of Coach Penny Hardaway as Head Coach of the program. Although a fair conversation with the lack of return on the investment, firing one of your own is always complicated and often can get messy fast. During his tenure as Head Coach of the Memphis Tigers, Coach Hardaway has won two conference tournaments, one regular season, and made the NCAA Tournament just three times in his eight years as Head Coach of the Tigers. During those eight seasons through Saturday’s game, Coach Hardaway has gone 169-75 and has not made it past the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Although his philosophy can still work, Coach Hardaway needs somebody on staff who can help win games. Being a great recruiter is part of the job; the other side of it is basketball coaching, in-game coaching that wins games and develops players to position Memphis to win more in March. With no appearances past the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Coach Hardaway needs somebody on staff who can help manage in-game coaching that helps Coach Hardaway win more games, making the fan base happy with deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. 

Memphis is a proud basketball program that has a history of reaching Final Fours, competing for National Championships, winning the conference, and, at the very least, making it past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. Memphis has not reached that second weekend since the 2008-2009 season, when the Tigers reached the Sweet 16 and lost to Missouri. Since then, you have an entire generation of Memphis fans who have not seen the success the older generation has, and something has to change, or risk Memphis falling into the has-been pile of college basketball that had success in the past but failed to adapt to the times, and stop winning at the levels it was built on. Memphis has been through three different coaches during this time frame, but the results have remained close to the same. It’s not because of a lack of investment because Memphis basketball has and will always have the money for basketball, it’s also not the facilities, something has changed within the program since the last Sweet 16  apperence and to be frank, Memphis deserves better. 

Take this year, for example, you have a group of guys who came together from the transfer portal, but they haven’t meshed yet. Memphis has won three in a row, but it hasn’t been pretty. There’s only so much Coach Penny Hardaway and his staff can do; they can position the guys to have success, but it comes down to the guys on the hardwood at any given time to execute the gameplan put into place by the staff. Coach Hardaway might want to cross that white line every now and then, but the guys on the floor are the other 50% of any basketball program, and this year’s team has not lived up to the hype. At this point in the season, Memphis will likely need to win the American Tournament to reach the NCAA Tournament due to the lack of non-conference success in games that could have given Memphis room to make a mistake or two without it collapsing the season. Last year’s team did well in the non-conference and made the runway for mistakes that much larger, and the Tigers earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament as a five seed, where they lost to Colorado State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. 

Then there’s the attendance issue, for the first time in the history of the program, over the last two seasons, portions of the FedEx Forum have been tarped to make the illusion of better fan turnout than the reality of half-filled games. Announced attendance and actual attendance are two different things, and there are a lot of moving parts within the issue, but talking about it in terms of Memphis basketball is important because it also paints the lack of excitement people have for Tigers basketball. Not even ten years ago, the FedEx Forum was packed out to the brim with Tigers basketbll ticket being the hottest ticket on the market. Now, the environment has taken a hit, and the homecourt advantage that Memphis once had is not as intimidating as it once was. 

So, what’s the solution? 

Find a way to win games. Winning cures all, and right now, the program is not the program of old. You can start with conference success to finish the season, but Memphis needs a return to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, and possibly a better return on investment. Coach Hardaway will be the Head Coach next season, but things have got to change for Memphis basketball to become fully relevant again. Change is never easy, but Memphis basketball is at a crossroads, and the reality of the situation is that Memphis basketball is not at a place where it has lived up to the standard; it just hasn’t. All of that can be cured by winning basketball games, and winning in a way that represents Tigers basketball to the fullest extent. 

Memphis will have a week off before heading to Boca Raton, Florida, to take on the Owls of Florida Atlantic next Sunday. 

Photo Credits – Memphis basketball on X