Who stood out among the teams on Upadhyaya’s ballot in a chaos-filled final week of the 2023-24 regular season?

Coach Penny Hardaway’s team has a single bye in the tournament and will open play against the winner of Wednesday’s first-round matchup between No. 12 seed Wichita State and No. 13 seed Rice.

Memphis women’s basketball team is eliminated in AAC Tournament by East Carolina. 

It’s pretty simple. If Memphis wants to make the NCAA Tournament, the only path is winning four games in four days in the AAC Tournament. That, of course, is something they’ve never done.

Despite 27 points from Nae’Qwan Tomlin, the Tigers lost to the Owls.

Here is the NCAA men’s basketball box score for Saturday’s game between the Memphis Tigers and Florida Atlantic Owls.

Memphis won five of its last six regular-season games and senior guard Maddie Griggs said the Tigers put the conference on notice that “we’re still here.” 

The stakes have never been higher this season for the Tigers than they will be Saturday in Boca Raton.

“Everybody’s just playing like each game’s our last,” Memphis’ Nae’Qwan Tomlin said. “Like if we lose, then this might be the end of our season.”

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Will David Jones return to Tigers? Penny Hardaway says there’s a chance

“I’ll say 60/40, 70/30 us,” Hardaway said of the Tigers’ odds of getting Jones back in a Tigers uniform for the 2024-25 season.

The five-game winning streak ends with a loss at North Texas. The Tigers next game will be in the AAC Tournament on Sunday against East Carolina.

Seth Bell, a 22-year-old native Memphian, even got David Jones himself to join in on the fun.

Parth Upadhyaya, Tim Buckley and Greg Gaston discuss a Memphis Tigers team, led by David Jones, that is back in the NCAA Tourney conversation after winning four in a row.

Memphis’ David Jones and Jahvon Quinerly expected to be subbed out in the second half versus UAB. Penny Hardaway “ignored them.”

Who are some teams that climbed into Upadhyaya’s Top 25 less than two weeks before Selection Sunday?

Memphis point guard Jahvon Quinerly kicked off a 46-9 run that saw the Tigers turn a 22-point deficit into a 19-point win Sunday against UAB.

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With his big sister Flor watching from the stands, David Jones and his Memphis teammates put on a show for her and all the Tiger faithful.

After trailing by 22 points in the first half, the Tigers used a 46-9 run to roar back and eventually blow out the Blazers. 

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Box score: Memphis 106, UAB 87

Here is the box score for the Memphis Tigers’ game against the UAB Blazers at FedExForum Sunday, March 3. 

Daryl Braden has been around the block, from Memphis high school basketball to following Larry Finch and Gene Bartow to UAB in the 1970s. After struggles with cocaine and crime, he’s back in Birmingham preaching against the pitfalls that sucked him in.

A 21-point victory over UAB on Saturday was the fifth consecutive win for Memphis. 

Trey Jemison almost gave up basketball for an internship with a construction company. Now one of Penny Hardaway’s former AAU players is with the Memphis Grizzlies. 

In the midst of a season that went from shine to, well, you know what, in the span of a week, it is indeed time to start asking if the inverse is happening as we enter March.

Jourdain, a 6-foot-9 forward who transferred to Memphis from Temple last offseason, has averaged 6.4 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.0 blocks through 28 games this season.