University of Memphis students speak out on basketball coaching change
David Gray stood hunched over the folding table on the plaza in front of the University of Memphis student center Wednesday afternoon, filling out his NCAA bracket.
Needless to say, the Tigers weren’t among his Final Four picks. But he hopes that’s about to change.
“Oh, I think it’s going to be great,” Gray said of the high probability that Penny Hardaway, the former U of M and NBA star, will be the next men’s basketball coach. “He has all five-star recruits on his high school team right now, and his AAU team has all five stars. Why not go to his college?”
The excitement on campus among students like Gray was palpable in the hours after former Coach Tubby Smith’s departure became official. While many also expressed regret that Smith didn’t get more time, they were giddy about the excitement they hope Hardaway will restore.
“It’s going to be a culture change, something fresh to believe in,” said Cade Maness, a junior majoring in sports and leisure management. “I love Memphis basketball, but I don’t like seeing it in the position it’s been in. I’d look around (at games) and say, ‘Wow, this isn’t fun anymore.’ ”
With the national name recognition of Hardaway, if he is the next coach as expected, Maness believes the program will generate instant interest beyond Memphis.
“Even people outside the community will be intrigued,” he said.
Maness said he’s been involved with the production of some throwback Penny Hardaway videos for Barstool Sports, so he knows what an impact he can have on the program.
Davarius Broyles saw the alarming drop in interest as well, and agrees that the Penny brand should help.
“Penny has the marketing behind him and will generate interest,” said Broyles, like Maness, a sports and leisure management major.
Still, Broyles laments that Smith wasn’t given more than two years to build a program, though he understands the dire financial predicament the university found itself in with plummeting attendance and donations.
“I don’t think Tubby had enough time to get into the groove of Memphis basketball,” Broyles said. “I think maybe it would have been good if Penny had been an assistant under Tubby. Between the two, that would have sparked the team.”
Alexandria Lane says she doesn’t know much about basketball, but she knows enough, she said, to know that Smith had the potential to build the program if he had been given more time.
“I just think it was too soon to send him packing,” said Lane, a junior political science major.
She quickly added, however: “Now, I love what Penny Hardaway has done at East (High School), so I know he also has potential — the potential to build great teams. I really feel like a collaboration between him and Tubby would have been better. You don’t want to become known as the school that has no loyalty by not giving a coach a chance.”
Ethan Worthington had a totally different take on the buzz around campus. A junior at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Worthington sat quietly at a table with his laptop across from where Gray was filling out his tournament bracket.
“I haven’t been following it too much,” Worthington said with a smile, “so I honestly don’t know exactly what’s going on.”
Worthington, who is from Knoxville, was on the U of M campus as part of a campus ministry group in Memphis during UT’s spring break. He said it was fun watching all the excitement Thursday.
“Oh yeah, it’s been kind of amusing in a way,” he said. “We call ourselves a basketball school now, so it’s been fun to watch.”