Giannotto: Grizzlies, Tigers testing fans’ patience
As another night of pandemic basketball in Memphis unfolded Tuesday, as the Tiger basketball team flew back from Orlando after another postponed college basketball game and Lebron James authored another scintillating fourthquarter spurt to hold off the pesky Grizzlies at mostly empty Fedexforum, a theme for this unusual season emerged yet again.
Patience. As in, the next few weeks and months could test yours.
Much like the pandemic itself, this basketball season already is becoming a study in how much resolve a resolute sports community such as Memphis can muster.
There is the more pressing matter of Memphis basketball, which has fallen short of preseason expectations thus far. The Tigers, in just 10 games, managed to further expose flaws in Penny Hardaway’s coaching and create an increasingly improbable path to an NCAA Tournament berth that has eluded them since 2014 — an eternity in the history of this program.
And there is the more nuanced start to this Memphis Grizzlies season, one that’s been admirable because of how they’ve performed in the face of several key injuries, but also disappointing because those in
juries are to the players who are supposed to carry this franchise into its next generation of success.
They are just trying to stay afloat until Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. return from their injuries, although there is less immediate pressure on them than their collegiate counterparts in the city because of what still lies ahead – be it the many years Morant and Jackson will presumably be here or the loaded NBA Draft class the Grizzlies have access to if this season continues at its current 2-5 pace. This is, of course, a paradox unique to the Memphis basketball infrastructure. The Tigers and Hardaway receive far more scrutiny than the NBA team, a dynamic unlike any other NBA city in the country.
It’s because each game, and each win or loss, is more important within the context of a college basketball season. It’s because of the city’s history, and the history of Tiger basketball, and decades-long history of this city treating Tiger basketball like its pro team. It’s because we didn’t anticipate needing this much patience with these Tigers.
So the odd situation Memphis must manage, because its game at UCF on Tuesday was postponed four days after its game at Temple was called off due to COVID-19 issues within those programs, is entirely unpredictable.
Memphis is not scheduled to play another game until SMU comes to FedexForum on Jan. 14. It means the Tigers will likely go 17 days between games, and 23 days playing just one game. They have too much time on their hands, even as the time they have to secure a spot in March Madness is beginning to slip away.
Memphis was at No. 97 as of Wednesday morning in the NCAA’S NET rankings, which have replaced the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) as a sorting tool used by the NCAA Tournament selection committee the past couple years. The Tigers aren’t as bad off as Michigan State (109) or Duke (113) or Kentucky (133), and they don’t have horrific losses from a metrics perspective, no matter how ugly they looked from a basketball purist’s perspective.
But it’s nonetheless troublesome considering how few opportunities the Tigers have left to improve their stock facing the rest of the American Athletic Conference. A prime chance for a quality win may have vanished when the UCF game was postponed.
Unlike football season, the AAC did not build in extra weeks into the calendar in order to more easily make up league games. It seems short-sighted now that COVID-19 is predictably causing disruptions.
Maybe, however, this pandemic-related hiatus will be the reset Memphis needs. It is, in retrospect, a nice gap of time for Hardaway to fully implement the new “Lion” offense Memphis broke out in its most recent win over South Florida. If the Tigers are going to regroup and go on a run, if they can become more cohesive and figure out some of their offensive woes, this feels like when it would happen.
The reality, of course, is that this Memphis team, despite a considerable amount of talent, hasn’t looked like an NCAA Tournament-caliber team. National analysts have deemed the Tigers one of the bigger disappointments of this college basketball season. It appears Hardaway needs more time than anyone anticipated to produce the kind of winner he promised the day he took this job.
It’s very much unlike what faces the Grizzlies, in the midst of a season that was always expected to be defined by how long we can wait, not by how soon they might start over.
Memphis is waiting on the return of Morant and Jackson, and the debut of Justise Winslow.. It’s waiting for Morant and Jackson and every other intriguing young piece on this roster to reach their prime in a few years.
So there will be more games like the past two against the Lakers. When the Grizzlies refused to back down despite obvious deficiencies, and played the defending NBA champions pretty darn even until crunch time. Until James took over and showed why Morant’s development as a superstar should be worth the wait.
In other words, be patient.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto