The pressure is on Penny Hardaway now to win big at Memphis
There is no question which men’s college basketball coach has produced the most intriguing summer: Penny Hardaway has won the offseason going away.
With the additions of high-profile recruits Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren to the Memphis roster, Hardaway’s Tigers have set themselves up to become the most-scrutinized team in the country for 2021-22.
Having each reclassified from the class of 2022, the 6-foot-10, 230-pound Duren ended up as the No. 3-ranked prospect in the Rivals 150 for the class of 2021, with the 6-9, 195-pound Bates at No. 4.
That makes Memphis the first program since Duke in 2018 — No. 1 R.J. Barrett; No. 3 Cameron Reddish; and No. 5 Zion Williamson — to sign as many as two of the top five-rated players in the Rivals 150.
After Hardaway beat out John Calipari for Duren and Tom Izzo for Bates, the online wagering firm BetOnline established Memphis and Michigan as the co-second choices to win the 2022 NCAA title at 9-1.
Only Gonzaga at 7-1 has shorter odds to win it all.
That’s heady air for a head coach, Hardaway, 50, who has yet to even make the NCAA Tournament in his first three seasons leading his college alma mater (there was no NCAA tourney to make in 2020, remember, due to the coronavirus pandemic).
Even before the late-summer recruiting bonanza of landing Duren and Bates, Memphis was having a wildly interesting offseason.
The revolving door of formerly well-regarded recruits exiting the Memphis program via the transfer portal started not long after Hardaway coached the Tigers to the 2021 NIT championship.
Guard Boogie Ellis (No. 37 in the 2019 Rivals 150) transferred to Southern Cal; former Kentucky commit DJ Jeffries (No. 51) moved on to Mississippi State; guard Damion Baugh (No. 86) switched to TCU; and center Moussa Cisse (No. 14 in 2020) flipped to Oklahoma State.
Yet even with that attrition, the Memphis roster is deep with highly regarded talent. Before Duren and Bates came on board, Memphis had added four freshmen ranked in the 2021 Rivals 150, headlined by forward Josh Minott (No. 32).
Hardaway also successfully wooed former Miami Hurricanes wing Earl Timberlake (No. 32 in the 2020 Rivals 150) via the portal.
On his coaching staff, Hardaway brought on basketball luminaries Larry Brown and Rasheed Wallace to fill two vacancies.
Brown, who will turn 81 on Sept. 14, is one of the preeminent basketball minds of this generation, the only man to win the NCAA title (Kansas in 1988) and the NBA championship (Detroit in 2004) as a head coach.
Side note: He was also a man ahead of his time. It is often noted that all three college programs where Brown served as a head coach, UCLA (1979-81), Kansas (1983-88) and SMU (2012-16), subsequently ended up on NCAA probation.
Our current era, when players are, justly, able to earn money off their name, image and likeness and in which the power of the NCAA seems to recede more with each passing week, would have been a more hospitable moment for Brown to launch his college-coaching career.
The fact that the Wallace drew the third-most technical fouls in NBA history sometimes overshadowed that the ex-North Carolina Tar Heels and Detroit Pistons big man otherwise played with a high-basketball IQ.
Hardaway brought the 6-11 Wallace on board to work with big men. On the 2021-22 Memphis roster, there will be plenty — eight Tigers players stand 6-8 or taller.
Because Hardaway has enjoyed ample recruiting success, the lack of an NCAA Tournament appearance has led some (especially fans at schools Memphis is beating for recruits) to question his coaching chops.
That is mostly unfair.
In Hardaway’s three prior seasons on the Memphis bench, the Tigers’ season-loss total has dropped from 14 (2018-19) to 10 (2019-20) to eight (last year, albeit in a shortened season).
Recall, the crown jewel of the ballyhooed Memphis 2019 recruiting haul, James Wiseman (No. 3 in the Rivals 150), only played three games for the Tigers after running into NCAA eligibility issues.
But now having added prospects as hyped as Duren and Bates to a roster that returns standouts Landers Nolley (a transfer from Virginia Tech) and DeAndre Williams (a transfer from Evansville), Hardaway has arrived at a season where just making the NCAA Tournament for a first time will not be enough.
Memphis and Hardaway need to make a run.
Hardaway, the former Orlando Magic star, will direct a roster that is long on length and athleticism. What is not apparent is whether the Tigers will feature the caliber of guard play it takes to survive and advance deep into March Madness.
Interestingly, at the time his choice of Memphis went public, the 6-9 Bates suggested he expects to be the Tigers’ point guard.
Should that happen, it will be a fascinating experiment to track.
What we do know now is that Hardaway, having clearly “won” the offseason nationally in men’s college hoops, is at the point in his head coaching career where he needs to produce a real season of similar caliber.
