42. McNeese Cowboys
45. VCU Rams
46. Dayton Flyers
47. St Mary’s Gaels
49. UCF Knights
52. Clemson Tigers
53. New Mexico Lobos
58. SMU Mustangs
60. Nevada Wolfpack
61. TCU Horned Frogs
63. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
65. Syracuse Orange
68. Iowa Hawkeyes
70. Butler Bulldogs
71. Princeton Tigers
74. Oklahoma Sooners
75. West Virginia Mountaineers
76. Georgia Bulldogs
77. UAB Blazers
80. Missouri Tigers
Here’s where our analysts each had Memphis ranked:
| Steven | Maxwell | Kam | Cody |
| 33 | 39 | 62 | 38 |
We put together these rankings roughly a month ago. And a lot has changed, especially for Memphis, since then. On September 5th, Penny Hardaway let go of three assistants, including Rick Stansbury, and another staffer. It was then reported that the Memphis program allegedly had multiple NCAA violations within the program. From there, it was reported that the university knew of Penny Hardaway’s involvement in recruiting players and academic violations. While during his six year tenure, Hardaway has never won less than 20 games, he also only has one NCAA tournament win to show for it, and despite being an excellent recruiter, his teams have tended to underachieve. At this point, the Tiger fanbase is calling for Penny’s job and there’s a ton of speculation of his dismissal regarding the off the court turmoil. But for now, Coach Hardaway is still leading this Memphis team.
Like most Memphis teams in Hardaway’s tenure, this team oozes talent, though the fit on the court is questionable. The Memphis backcourt consists of former Iowa State and Texas point guard, Tyrese Hunter, as well as former Tulsa guard, PJ Haggerty. Haggerty was second in the AAC in points per game last year at 21.2, behind Memphis’ David Jones, who has since graduated. Haggerty was also the National Freshman of the Year last season. A dilemma arises because Hunter and Haggerty both play best with the ball in their hands, so it’ll be difficult to split reps between them. An anonymous AAC coach has even went as far to tell me that he would have major concerns over that if he was Memphis’ coach. The other additions are Colby Rogers from AAC foe, Wichita State. Rogers shot 40.9% from three last year. Additionally, the only returning forward on this team is Nick Jourdain, who will likely start at the four. Finally, the starting center will be Moussa Cisse, who started his college career at Memphis in 2020-21 before stops at Oklahoma State and Ole Miss.
Off the bench, there’s Dain Dainja (previously from Illinois), Baraka Okojie (previously from George Mason), Tyreek Smith (previously from SMU), and PJ Carter (previously from UTSA). Diana and Smith should help with Memphis’ defense, while Carter is a long range sniper. While Memphis’ 22-10 record last season looks good on paper, it was a very rocky season. While Memphis was ranked as high as 10th in the AP poll at one point, there were plenty of lows on last year’s team as well. Three of their ten losses came against Wichita State, Rice, and Tulane in AAC play. As a result, the Tigers weren’t even too much considered for an at-large bid for the NCA tournament. While Hardaway is excellent at getting players who have had previous success at their other situations, or players who have won previous accolades, he seems to struggle to get players to mesh well. The pieces never quite fit perfectly. As previously stated, despite multiple elite recruiting classes in both freshmen recruits as well as the transfer portal, there’s one NCAA tournament win in six years to show for it. It seems like the only team that can challenge Memphis in the AAC is UAB, so they should be the favorites for the conference by default. But if this Memphis team doesn’t win the AAC and make noise in March Madness, the Penny Hardaway experiment could be running out of time.
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