Tigers’ transfers are new normal
Maybe you were surprised, but Penny Hardaway likely wasn’t.
He had been offering subtle and not-so-subtle hints that next year’s Memphis basketball team probably wouldn’t look the same as the team that just played its best basketball at the end of the season and won the National Invitation Tournament.
Just two weeks ago, he reportedly offered a scholarship to Kentucky transfer Cam’ron Fletcher and then
held a Zoom call with him. Even though, with the four players Memphis signed in its 2021 recruiting class, the Tigers were already slated to be one player over the NCAA scholarship limit without Fletcher if every player from this year’s team returned.
In the minutes following Sunday’s NIT celebration, Hardaway offered this warning: “I’m the type of coach where I don’t really try to force kids to stay. If a kid feels like he wants to go somewhere else and play more minutes, I support that. There’s nothing negative about that.”
And then on Tuesday, following the introductory press conference of
new women’s basketball coach Katrina Merriweather, Hardaway revealed he would be holding meetings with his players Thursday. He was then asked when his vacation would begin.
“Depends how Thursday goes,” Hardaway responded.
Evidently, Thursday came early. Sophomores Boogie Ellis, D.J. Jeffries and Damion Baugh each entered the transfer portal within an hour’s time Wednesday afternoon and suddenly the offseason speculation that accompanied the thrilling conclusion to this season became all too real.
There were more than 1,110 players in the transfer portal as of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday night, in anticipation of the one-time transfer waiver the NCAA is expected to pass in the coming weeks. That means there were, on average, three transfers per Division I team this year. So what happened to Memphis is happening all over the country.
NCAA Tournament teams such as Colorado, Florida and Wisconsin all have at least four players in the transfer portal. So does Ole Miss, Miami and Xavier. Cincinnati and Tulsa in the American Athletic Conference have six players in the transfer portal.
Michigan State lost a starting guard to the transfer portal. Syracuse lost a former five-star recruit considered to be its point guard of the future. Houston lost AAC preseason player of the year Caleb Mills to a mid-season transfer.
It’s college basketball free agency, for better or worse.
But it doesn’t make Wednesday’s developments any less painful. Less than two years after Hardaway reeled in the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class, only two of the seven players from that class remain (Lester Quinones and Malcolm Dandridge).
Ellis and Jeffries, in particular, were crucial pieces during the Tigers’ surge over the past two months. In the NIT championship game, they played a combined 62 minutes and had 38 points, nine rebounds, seven assists and five blocks. They were arguably the two most important players on the floor Sunday, and they were two of the team’s top four scorers for the season.
So their decision to leave isn’t necessarily like Baugh’s decision, which feels like the sort of transfer college basketball teams have always endured when a player is only receiving limited playing time. But in the transfer portal era, what Ellis and Jeffries are doing is sadly not unusual.
The days of teams growing together over years appears to mostly be over. The transiency of grassroots basketball, where rosters change from weekend to weekend sometimes, and the player empowerment era of the NBA has led to a generation of basketball players constantly chasing a better situation, whether it actually exists or not.
This isn’t meant to come off as an old man yelling at these players to get off his metaphorical lawn. This is just how it is for now, especially with transfer restrictions about to be relaxed, and Hardaway knows that as well as any college coach given his background in the high school and grassroots levels. This might not even be the end of the departures at Memphis.
The key, of course, is to stop the bleeding here and take from the transfer portal something equivalent to what it took from Memphis. To make sure enough of the Tigers’ nucleus from the NIT run returns so Memphis isn’t starting over next season.
Keeping Quinones, Deandre Williams, Landers Nolley II and Moussa Cisse in the fold seems even more crucial now. Finding a wing (like Fletcher) and a point guard via transfer to offset the loss of Jeffries, Ellis and Baugh is also a priority, if it wasn’t already.
But Hardaway likely knew all of that. While the way this season played out seemed to re-affirm his on-court coaching chops, Hardaway has almost always been a step ahead when it comes to recruiting since taking this job three years ago.
So Wednesday afternoon, a few hours after the NIT championship celebration officially came to a screeching halt, Hardaway stopped in for lunch at Stein’s Restaurant in South Memphis with longtime Memphis basketball supporter and Larry Finch confidante Leonard Draper and Southern Heritage Classic founder Fred Jones, among others.
Draper described Hardaway as “very upbeat and positive” and added this caveat: “He’s going to have some players.”
Still, even though Draper didn’t yet know the specifics of Wednesday’s exodus, he realized in that moment the end of this season really just meant the beginning of a new one. Hardaway has to replace former assistant coach Tony Madlock, who left for a head coaching job at South Carolina State. He has to replace Ellis, Jeffries and Baugh. And he could have to replace more.
“I told him (Wednesday), ‘Now, your work begins,’ ” Draper said. “He’s got his work cut out for him.”
So vacation might have to wait.