Grace period over, Memphis must go on unblemished run to reach NCAA tournament

AP Photo/LM Otero.

Well, one thing for sure is that Memphis Basketball fans cannot manufacture a narrative on the NCAA tournament selection committee having ill will towards the program’s aspirations once we hit the month of March. Despite losing multiple games during the same week, the committee only dropped Memphis from 10^th to 19^th in one of their weekly top 25 team rankings. However, the Tigers never seemed to return the favor on the court. After being ranked the 19th-best team in the country, Memphis would incur another loss that paved the way for their exodus out of the weekly top 25 rankings lists.

Even with the multiple losses, college basketball analysts felt that one of the American Athletic Conference’s automatic bids to the NCAA tournament would belong to the Tigers. But as previously stated, the Tigers never held their end of the bargain on the court.

After Thursday’s embarrassing 76-66 defeat on the road to North Texas, the grace period is officially over for Memphis. The program’s tournament hopes are now on life support. The Tigers suffered a loss to a team they had no business losing to, especially with the Mean Green missing two key contributors in guards, CJ Noland and Rubin Jones.

Based on the optics, it looked like an easy win for the Tigers, but they were outplayed from start to finish when the game tipped off. As with every defeat that occurred, issues with perimeter defense were a key culprit. The Tigers allowed North Texas to connect on 16 threes in Thursday’s defeat. A player who provided most of the Mean Green scoring output was guard Jason Edwards.

The Atlanta native led all North Texas scorers with 30 points and a 77.9% three-point percentage. As for Memphis, it was one of their worst scoring outings since the 97-88 defeat by UAB. Forward David Jones once again led the Tigers in scoring, but it wasn’t the herculean effort we are accustomed to seeing from the former St. John’s talent.

Jones only accounted for 14 points in Thursday’s matchup. During the postgame press interviews, head coach Penny Hardaway was asked why Jones had been contained so well by North Texas; he responded that fatigue was the primary factor. Hardaway would go in-depth on what occurred, and he stated that his intent was for Jones to allow another teammate to contain Edwards, but his star player insisted that he was up for the task. Coach Hardaway and the Tigers have been in this situation before.

He knows what it’s like to have March Madness hopes in balance. However, what’s different from those teams compared to the current squad was that the players bought into the vision and made sacrifices for the team’s betterment. Based on the optics, the current version of the Memphis Tigers is not unified as a team. Well, at least they once were. They are going through one of the most baffling regressions in recent memory for a college basketball program.

The Tigers were once ranked as a top-ten team in the country. They were on an extended winning streak that dated back to matchups against opponents such as Clemson, Virginia, and Texas A&M. I’ve pondered if they could ever get back to their pre-AAC status, but that looks long and gone. The Tigers are what they are: a roster that has not bought into the head coaches’ vision of what they needed to accomplish to remain successful. With the loss to UNT, qualifying for an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament is out of reach.

To even have a puncher’s chance of qualifying, the Tigers must win the remaining games on their 2023-2024 slate or leave Fort Worth, Texas, as AAC champions. Based on how everything is playing out, can they go undefeated to close the season along with a strong outing in the AAC tournament? It’s possible, but I would lean toward neither outcome based on Hardaway’s demeanor and the team’s lack of urgency on the court. The Tigers’ thunder run to March Madness begins on Saturday when they head to Dallas to take on the SMU Mustangs.