Memphis blasts past Houston
Penny Hardaway stood there in front of the scorer's table taking in the scene his Memphis basketball team had created, and the words and feelings that followed came straight from the heart, if only because they came with no warning.
Michael Schroeder had kept the idea of Hardaway addressing the 17,946 on hand inside Fedexforum to himself Sunday. The director of communications for the athletics department knew Hardaway to be the superstitious sort. No need to bother him before the biggest game of his coaching career, and the biggest game this program had seen in much longer than that.
So not until Memphis blasted Houston, 75-61 in its regular-season finale, not until it seemed likely these Tigers will finally end their NCAA Tournament drought a week from now, did Schroeder seek out Hardaway in the midst of the postgame handshake with a house microphone.
“I just want to say thank you to you guys, everybody that believed in us from Day One, when we went through everything we went through,” Hardaway said to this sea of white and blue. “You know how hard it was from the beginning, but man, this feels sweet to be in this position. I really appreciate every last person from the top to the bottom.
You guys made this happen today.”
This day was for everyone who toiled away for years trying to get Memphis back to this point.
For those loyal fans, especially the ones who were in the building before Sunday, the ones who gritted their teeth through the end of Josh Pastner, the failed Tubby Smith era, and the ones who kept the faith through this rollercoaster ride under Hardaway.
For the players, and maybe most of all guards Alex Lomax and Tyler Harris, the two Memphis natives who shined under the brightest of spotlights Sunday, because they've been with Hardaway since this fouryear odyssey began. And yes, this day was for Hardaway, too.
“I almost got emotional and I don't even know why,” Hardaway said. “Honestly, I guess the whole entire season flashed in front of me and then the fans were in there cheering and, man, it was really a surreal moment because they came out because they knew how much we needed them, and they came out and supported us in Tiger fashion.”
Like a true coach, he thought more about the losses than the wins. About the four-game losing streak in December when this dream of a season got derailed. About the threegame losing streak in January, the one that led to a profane answer at a postgame press conference, when this veered toward a nightmare.
“We aren't who we used to be,” Hardaway declared.
He was talking about the entire program there, and the entire country got to see it against Houston.
The building was alive from the opening tip, and so was the home team.
To see Memphis lead Houston by 20, to see Harris and Landers Nolley II dropping in 3-pointers from all over the court, to see Lomax throwing behind-the-back passes and receiving a thunderous pregame ovation, to see him then bobbing his head to "Whoop That Trick," was to see a season transformed.
Houston was completely overwhelmed, so too perhaps were all those naysayers who left these Tigers for dead a couple months ago. And that was all before halftime. "We could have played really good today and lost because Memphis is good and that crowd was great," Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said.
"It was so loud," added Lomax, "you could feel it in your body. Your body was shaking on the floor."
You could feel it in your soul. Memphis probably secured its ticket to March Madness regardless of what it does this week in the conference tournament. Probably erased the demons that lingered over this program since 2014.
But more than that, it punched back at the notion that this program can't feel the way it did Sunday.
"They actually saw Tiger basketball," Hardaway said. "This is what I'm used to. It feels good to be back here.”
You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto