‘We’ve learned how to win’
How Memphis got to NIT semis and who got it done
Giannotto: How the Tigers kept their NIT run alive is less important than who got it done.
It wasn't so much how Memphis ultimately beat Boise State Thursday night that felt like a symbol of what lies ahead.
It was who clinched the Tigers' 59-56 win in the NIT quarterfinals in Denton, Texas.
Memphis guard Boogie Ellis took the initial shot with 37 seconds to go, and D.J. Jeffries came swooping in from the wing to swipe the
rebound from Boise State's Emmaneul Akot with a well-timed flick of his hand. The ball tipped directly into the arms of Tigers sophomore Lester Quinones underneath for the go-ahead put-back.
Deandre Williams then hit two decisive free throws, Ellis skillfully fouled Boise State before it could get off a potential game-tying 3-pointer – just as coach Penny Hardaway instructed – and Landers Nolley II capped the whole thing off with two more clutch free throws to officially ice the game.
Right there, to close out a trip to the NIT Final Four, Ellis, Jeffries, Williams, Quinones and Nolley represented the fulcrums of how this season got turned around and who can keep it going.
One of those five led Memphis in scoring in all but one of its past 15 games. All five are eligible to return to Memphis next season. All five could also be playing basketball elsewhere next season.
So perhaps more significant than any play made Thursday – or the fact that Memphis actually made four clutch free throws in a row! – was a statement offered by Jeffries at the very end of his postgame news conference, after his fourth-straight game scoring in double figures.
A statement suggesting more clearly than ever before that hopefully we've reached the middle of this group's journey, not necessarily the end.
“We're using this tournament to show teams that next year we're going to make a strong run to the (NCAA) tournament,” Jeffries said in part. “We just got to stay together and the rest will fall into place.”
The season will be over after this weekend no matter how the Tigers (18-8) fare Saturday in their first NIT semifinals appearance since 2005 against Colorado State (20-6) in Frisco, Texas. And with its conclusion comes the most important pivot point of the Hardaway era.
The latest reminder came a couple hours before tip-off Thursday, when South Carolina State named Memphis assistant coach Tony Madlock as its new coach. Madlock was the first assistant coach Hardaway hired upon being named coach three years ago and the last remaining member of Hardaway's original staff.
So there will be more change this offseason. But how much change can be avoided?
That 2005 NIT run turned into fourstraight seasons in which Memphis reached at least the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament under John Calipari. There is hope this tournament could be a similar stepping stone.
There is hope because of what Memphis fans watched the past two months, that despite this team's frustrating turnovers and missed free throws and convoluted rotations, there are a lot of pieces in place, if those pieces decide to remain in the same place.
It's going to be a wild offseason in college basketball that will at times resemble NBA free agency. The NCAA is expected to pass a waiver so that players transferring for the first time don't have to sit out a season at their new school.
There were already nearly 900 players in the NCAA'S transfer portal as of Thursday according to the recruiting site, Verbal Commits. There will likely be some Memphis players joining them once the season ends.
But much like Thursday, how is not as important as whom.
If Hardaway can keep a majority of his top nine scorers, along with the addition of a four-member 2021 recruiting class ranked among the top five in the country by 247Sports, and a couple strategic transfers like Nolley and Williams, the Tigers are set up to begin next season carrying the same momentum with which they're closing this season.
The same full-court press Hardaway used to great effect this season, and once again on Thursday, will now be applied to players like Ellis and Jeffries and Williams and whoever else might consider leaving Memphis that Hardaway would prefer stick around.
A resilient final sequence against Boise State, or even a NIT championship, can't be the culminating fruits of what's happened the past few years.
“We've learned how to win," Hardaway said Thursday. "We got down two points with under two minutes and went on a 7-0 run. That's just growth from the team.”
That's a lot of time invested in Ellis emerging as the lethal scoring option he was billed to be as a recruit. That's seven games waiting for Williams to add the veteran presence, and toughness, this program lacked. That's two years of turning Quinones into an elite two-way glue guy.
That's a season-and-a-half invested in Jeffries as he lost and found his way again, initially because of a knee injury and then through this year's ups and downs. That's why it felt comforting to hear him talk about the future, and the satisfaction he got Thursday from triggering the decisive play.
“At first, I was playing with too much pressure. I was thinking too much. I was worried about all the expectations I had coming into the season,” Jeffries said. “Right now, I'm just playing free. It's the best time of our lives. This is college. You've got to enjoy this time while you can, and that's how I'm looking at it right now. I'm just enjoying my time playing what I love to do – basketball.”
Memphis would love if he kept playing here.