SEATTLE — Is Penny Hardaway a good coach?
As a four-time All-Star, Hardaway turned in the best year of his NBA career in the 1995-96 season, averaging 21.7 points, 7.1 assists and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 51.3 percent from the field. During the heyday of his career, he was one of the 10 best players in the league night and night out, able to stuff a stat sheet with the best of them.
Almost 30 years later, however, the defining stat when it comes to Hardaway might be one … as in, one NCAA Tournament win.
On Friday against 12th-seeded Colorado State — a 1.5-point favorite over banged-up Memphis — the Tigers lost their second first-round game under Hardaway, falling to Colorado State 78-70. The win sends Colorado State to the second round to meet Maryland and sends the Tigers and Hardaway back to Memphis.
The Tigers were missing starting guard Tyrese Hunter and his backup Dante Harris, both sidelined with injuries. The Hunter absence was especially tough as the senior guard was the best perimeter defender for Memphis and had significant postseason experience.
But that fact doesn’t change the more glaring one, which is that Memphis, once a proud program that had a reputation for deep postseason runs, has just one NCAA Tournament win since 2014. Given the lack of recent success in particular, Hardaway knows the questions that are coming: Is he a good coach? Should he have this job?
Memphis coach Penny Hardaway has a 162-68 record in six seasons with the program. (Steven Bisig / Imagn Images)
Hardaway, 53, had no college coaching background when he was hired by Memphis in 2018. A successful high school and AAU coach, he had numerous connections on the circuit. Because of that, it made sense that he would be a great recruiter.
That’s an important skill. But it has been diminished considerably in the name, image and likeness era and the coming revenue-sharing era when a lot of high-level recruits are more interested in who can write them the biggest check than who wants to build a lifelong relationship with them.
“I think a little bit (being a great recruiter) matters because you try to build a relationship,” Hardaway said. “But in the overall scheme of things it’s about the money.”
The Tigers are in good shape there, and Hardaway is the first to say it. Last spring, FedEx, which is based in Memphis, pledged $25 million to the school’s NIL efforts. Compared to other programs in the American Athletic Conference, Memphis is in terrific shape.
It has plenty of money to compete and make deep NCAA Tournament runs. What the Tigers don’t have much of is luck, especially under Hardaway. Some of that might be his fault, given the scandals that have plagued the program.
Other stuff has been entirely out of his hands. Losing a starting point guard in the most important stretch of the season is nothing but rotten luck. So is losing a senior guard who could shoot and play defense, as happened to Memphis last January when Caleb Mills had season-ending knee surgery.
Bad luck is also drawing top-seeded Gonzaga in the second round of what was essentially a home game for the Zags in the 2022 tournament in Portland when Gonzaga squeaked by the Tigers by four points.
Losing on a buzzer-beater could be called unlucky, too. That’s basically what happened to Memphis in 2023 when Florida Atlantic scored on a baseline out-of-bounds play with 2.5 seconds to play, giving the Owls a 66-65 win (considering FAU advanced to the Final Four that year, it might have just been the better team).
But at some point, coaches and teams have to make their own luck. Hardaway loves being the coach at Memphis and values the basketball-loving community. For as beloved as he is, said community isn’t going to put up with this type of postseason mediocrity much longer.
After the loss to Colorado State, Hardaway slumped into the postgame news conference. To his credit, he owned the upset, acknowledging that criticism about the Tigers’ lack of NCAA Tournament success the last few years “comes with the job.”
“We want to make deep runs in March,” he said. “We haven’t done that yet. It doesn’t matter what happened in either of those games; I haven’t gotten it done yet. I understand that’s going to be the subject.”
Hardaway and Memphis had a strange — or maybe we should just say embarrassing — start to the season. Four assistants were dismissed in September while an anonymous letter alleging major violations was turned over to the NCAA. Hardaway had to completely rebuild his staff eight weeks before the Tigers’ first game.
He pivoted admirably, bringing in longtime head coach Mike Davis and former Duke star Nolan Smith. Memphis piled up 29 wins, the most in Hardaway’s tenure, winning the AAC regular-season and conference tournament championships. But there are still issues — and the talent on the roster isn’t one of them.
Hardaway is not a great in-game strategist. How else to explain Memphis barely beating conference opponents like Rice and Charlotte, two of the worst teams in the AAC? It’s much harder to win games in conference than the average fan understands; conference teams know each other — and each other’s playbooks — so well that it’s common to have dogfights in January and February. But at some point, talent and a scouting report should separate teams. For most of the 2024-25 season, Memphis had a bad habit of playing down to its competition.
In the coming months, college basketball coaches will spend their time prowling the transfer portal and trying to persuade 18-to-22-year-olds to sign what amounts to one-year contracts. But Hardaway should devote some time to finding a great X’s and O’s assistant, someone who can come in and break down exactly what Memphis does well and what it does not and give the Tigers some better game plans.
After a somber news conference in which Hardaway said he told his locker room the season was not a failure even if it ended with a loss, the lanky 6-foot-7 former point guard retreated to a quiet hallway to speak on the phone with his two daughters. He slumped against the wall, talking with Memphis athletic director Ed Scott about the what-ifs of the season.
He was reflective and measured on his walk to the Tigers’ locker room, saying, “I try to keep things in perspective. My mom had throat cancer last year. Having a loss hurts, but nothing hurt worse than seeing my mom go through that. After a game like this, I try to be understanding of the moment.”
Despite his frustration and disappointment, he believes something good is going to happen soon. He’s convinced the Tigers are due for a run of good luck. And he plans to be around to experience it. He still loves coaching — even if it has changed dramatically since he got into it seven years ago.
“I’m not looking for any excuses,” he said. “I love this sport because you have a chance to do something special. You gotta go through your good and your bad, and right now, we’re going through our bad.”
If and when the Tigers start going through their good, everyone will know that, too. Because it’ll mean the Tigers have finally wo…n another NCAA Tournament game.
(Top photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
