Hardaway’s extension is right decision, worst optics
They trudged toward the locker room, the coach with the new contract extension and the once-ballyhooed recruits who helped him get that extension, lost in their thoughts because they again looked lost on the court.
Lester Quinones shook his head, disbelief slowly turning into disgust. D.J. Jeffries couldn't pick his eyes up from the floor. Moussa Cisse, the fivestar prospect, limped through the tunnel. Boogie Ellis only mustered a blank stare, stunned by another setback. Memphis basketball coach Penny Hardaway stared up at the empty stands, the joy of a few hours earlier gone.
On the same day Memphis and Har
daway agreed to a 5-year contract extension worth $12.25 million, exasperation and embarrassment seeped into every answer he gave after the Tigers lost about the ugliest college basketball game imaginable to Tulsa in a fan-less Fedexforum.
“Half the guys might be upset,” Hardaway said Monday, addressing the mood in the locker room after the 56-49 loss, “the other guys, I don’t know. I really don’t.”
And so it became the right decision with the worst optics.
What Hardaway accomplished during his initial contract – the millions of dollars he generated for the athletic department, the high-profile recruits he brought into the program and the fans he brought back to the program, the return to the national discussion – it reinvigorated Tiger basketball off the court. This merited a contract extension. But those achievements, combined with an increasingly disappointing season and another disappointing defeat, also set the program up to be declared “one of the biggest disappointments in college basketball,” by national college basketball reporter Jon Rothstein following the loss to Tulsa.
The Tigers’ offense looked as inept as ever under Hardaway. They seem to be flailing for answers more than they ever have under him.
So the reward Memphis announced represents a crossroads for Hardaway. He has time to figure this out. But what’s happening so far this season, what happened Monday, can’t keep happening.
For the sake of the basketball-loving world, for the sake of this basketball-mad city, let’s hope nothing resembling the offensively-challenged, turnover-laden rock fight that took place between Memphis and Tulsa happens again.
The Tigers produced five field goals after halftime, their defense broke down in crunch time, and the aftermath might have been more alarming.
Hardaway alternated between dejected and defiant. He alluded to deeper issues.
“We’re in a shooting slump as a full team,” Hardaway said.
Or a team full of shooting slumps is just a bad shooting team without a viable point guard.
“I’ve been begging players to do certain things, and they haven’t been doing them,” Hardaway said.
Either the players don’t fit correctly, they can’t do what he wants them to do, or the message is getting through. It all leads back to Hardaway.
“We understand what the problems are,” he said.
The biggest problem of all is that the problems aren’t getting fixed.
After changing the starting lineup again, after changing what coach runs the offense, the first nine games this season don’t look much different than the erratic 31 games this program played last year.
“I have to take this as a coach,” Hardaway said, “but I honestly don’t think it’s about changing what we do.”
Memphis just gave Hardaway more years and more money because he can still eventually change this. It just won’t happen as quickly as he changed the athletic department’s financial outlook.
But the right decision can’t ultimately look like this. This was never acceptable. Not under Pastner. Not under Smith. Not under Hardaway’s former coach, Larry Finch. Not during any era of Memphis basketball since Gene Bartow roamed the sidelines.
On the day Hardaway got more time to return Memphis to glory, the goal hadn’t felt so far away since the day before he took the job.
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto