Can you do it?

With three regular-season games left, the Memphis Tigers are sending a unified message. Just a week after getting undressed at SMU, they looked like they finally were having fun again in their 78-74 win against FAU last Sunday. For the first time this year, several players showed up to Penny Hardaway’s radio show Monday night.

So can you bring yourself to believe this team is capable of running the table, or can this team win four games in four days and punch an automatic ticket to the NCAA Tournament?

Memphis Tigers paying homage to their Black pioneers

Maybe you never wavered, in the face of the multiple losing streaks and Hardaway taking his team to task after the SMU loss. No one, the coach included, would blame you if you did. 

The road for the Tigers to get back into the field of the NCAA Tournament is long. It’s within the realm of possibility there’s just no path to an at-large berth for the Tigers at this point. Even if they win their next three and then win three games in the AAC Tournament, they’ll need some help from around the country.

They’ll need VCU to become a Quad 1 win again. They’ll need minimal bids to be stolen. Before long, crunching all the different scenarios starts to feel like the theory of relativity.

But wouldn’t it be nice if the Tigers went into conference tournament week on a big winning streak, continuing Thursday on the road at East Carolina? Wouldn’t it truly feel like all things are possible? There are a few reasons — yes, still — to think this season can be salvaged yet:

1. There are few coaches in the country better at blocking out the noise than Hardaway even if he’s the one who usually creates it. Not even 48 hours after the news of a university investigation into Malcolm Dandridge, Hardaway led the Tigers to, metrically, their second-best win of the season against FAU.
   
   Maybe he used it as a rallying point. People are out to get us. That’s what John Calipari was so great at, all those years. Whatever the case, his team responded.
   
   
2. We’ve belabored the point, but does anybody think it’s a coincidence that Hardaway utilized a six-man rotation against FAU – and the Tigers controlled the second half? I don’t.
   
   After the starting five, only Jayden Hardaway played more than seven minutes. Carl Cherenfant did not play and Jonathan Pierre played one minute. It’s nothing against those players specifically, but this team is just simply at its worst when Hardaway is constantly poking and prodding with lineups. The time for that is over. Hardaway knows who his best five players are, and now — at the last possible moment — he’s finally living with the results they produce.
   
   
3. Nae’Qwan Tomlin. I have no idea if Dandridge will return this year — my bet is not — but I’m OK with that, especially if it leads to more performances like we saw Sunday from Tomlin.
   
   David Jones has been the most consistent scorer for the Tigers this season, but Tomlin is the team’s best all-around player.
   
   It was all on display against FAU. He made shots from distance. He finished at the rim. He got to the foul line and converted those opportunities. It’s a bit of an arbitrary number admittedly, but Memphis is 3-1 in games when Tomlin plays 30 minutes or more. The lone loss was the 74-73 home loss to South Florida.
   
   If Tomlin is finally comfortable after arriving at the semester break and more 30-plus-minute nights are on the way, it raises the ceiling of these Tigers.
   
   
4. There’s no immovable object standing in their way. Houston’s off terrorizing another league now.
   
   Side note: Amazing job by Kelvin Sampson winning the Big 12 in Houston’s first year.
   
   While that takes two bona fide Quad 1 opportunities off the table, it also makes life a little easier when you don’t have to go through that juggernaut to win the conference tournament if that’s what it comes down to.

So, does all of that make you a believer? Through the euphoric highs and depressing lows of this season, if the team is truly as unified as they seem to want people to believe, it’s all still possible for these Tigers.