Penny Hardaway has been an OK basketball coach by six seasons with the Memphis Tigers, however his program is nationally related solely in its potential to generate embarrassing headlines.
The middling hoops product now not justifies the off-court turmoil — the most recent of which incorporates 4 members of Hardaway’s workers dismissed simply earlier than the beginning of preseason apply and the college confirming the existence of an nameless letter alleging main violations, which has been turned over to the NCAA.
The subsequent coach of this program could not be capable of rally the followers, herald top-notch gamers or attain 20 wins the best way beloved Memphian and NBA legend Hardaway has. However it’s about time to search out out. It’s not a Holy Grail quest to discover a coach who can approximate Hardaway’s backside line — two NCAA Match bids and one win in these six seasons — whereas additionally not protecting the lights on at NCAA Enforcement.
GO DEEPER
Memphis submits letter alleging potential violations to NCAA
This program has a championship heritage with legendary gamers and groups within the not-so-distant previous. Scandal is a part of that heritage, too, however that was again when individuals cared about NCAA scandals. It typically looks like Hardaway is attempting to create optimum situations for a sequel to “Blue Chips,” the delightfully cheesy 1994 film that includes Nick Nolte as a compromised hoops coach, Hardaway as a purchased recruit and Ed “Al Bundy” O’Neill as an investigative reporter.
It’s been a gentle stream of investigations, eligibility questions and suspensions for Memphis since Hardaway changed Tubby Smith, whose two-season common of 20.0 wins wasn’t far behind Hardaway’s (22.2), and whose integrity was by no means a problem in his 31-year head teaching profession.
Educational improprieties are the worst of what has been alleged. On this period of participant empowerment and funding, packages that attempt to shortcut schooling are declaring they see these “student-athletes” as nothing greater than a method to an finish.
Even with all of the participant motion happening, and with NIL giving them an authorised monetary minimize, emphasizing and fostering tutorial pursuits needs to be as necessary as ever for faculty athletics packages. People who don’t conduct enterprise as such needs to be known as on it.
Some will name that naïve. Nobody can argue NIL {and professional} sports activities cash shall be lifetime cash for greater than a fraction of school athletes.
Educational violations involving a number of Memphis gamers are alleged within the nameless letter, which has been considered by The Athletic. The Memphis Business Attraction reported in February that Malcolm Dandridge was withheld from 5 video games due to tutorial circumstances. The paper reported in March that males’s basketball tutorial advisor Leslie Brooks was fired the day earlier than the college introduced Dandridge would miss video games.
It’s at all times attainable a state of affairs like this, if true, occurs independently of the individuals who oversee a program. However that doesn’t absolve them of all duty.
And that is simply the most recent of many points for Hardaway’s program, relationship again to an 18-month investigation into the recruitment of James Wiseman. There’s been nothing terribly damning outdoors of the teachers allegations. However the sample is fairly clear at this level for a program that has employed a minimum of 41 individuals — 17 in teaching or operations — since Hardaway was employed in 2018, in line with The Each day Memphian.
The allegations within the letter embody two improper funds. A type of, for $60,000 to a prospect, was alleged to have occurred in 2022. Is it attainable Hardaway didn’t understand that at that time you would take just a few easy steps and legally pay a prospect by a 3rd get together? The general sloppiness right here, whatever the veracity of that exact allegation, brings one other main Tennessee sports activities coach to thoughts.
Jeremy Pruitt presumably realized the right way to conduct under-the-table enterprise discreetly and professionally at varied elite school soccer packages, then received to Tennessee and did all however hand out a whole bunch with stickers of his face on them. Pruitt, who would have been defended in any respect prices by UT if he had been successful huge, was as a substitute fired for trigger in 2021. As Memphis begins a brand new period with Ed Scott as athletic director, Pruitt’s demise involves thoughts.
Hardaway, whose contract runs by 2027-28, has been an OK coach. He’ll at all times be a Memphis legend. Possibly his seventh crew, with a nearly all-new roster and training workers, may discover the magic for a 3rd NCAA bid.
However it will be higher for Memphis if that is another person’s first crew, even when meaning an interim somebody. The Tennessee administration turned a multitude into a possibility, and it labored out fairly nicely for them.
(Photograph: Aric Becker/ISI Photographs/Getty Photographs)
