Buckley: The Tigers made one midseason addition. Do they need another? It’s a big decision.
Memphis coach Penny Hardaway talks to forward Nicholas Jourdain (2) during a Feb. 3, 2024, game against Wichita State. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
The last time the Memphis Tigers made a midseason addition before their latest, an already fragile team fell further apart.
Nae’Qwan Tomlin, a former Kansas State big man who joined Memphis midway through the 2023-24 season, was terrific on the court. With egos and NIL issues already adversely impacting the Tigers, however, nothing Tomlin did was going to be enough.
Memphis was 11-2 after the first two games he played, non-conference wins over Vanderbilt and Austin Peay, and 15-2 early in American Athletic Conference play. But the Tigers finished 22-10 after going just 11-7 in its AAC regular season and losing to Wichita State in its opening AAC Tournament game.
Ranked as high as No. 10 in the Associated Press Top 25 in mid-January of last season, Memphis went on a four-game AAC losing streak in the back half of the month and didn’t even make the NCAA Tournament.
An epic collapse.
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Memphis Tigers Basketball Penny Hardaway Subscriber OnlyThank you for supporting local journalism.
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Tim Buckley
Tim is a veteran sportswriter who graduated from CBHS in Memphis and the University of Missouri. He previously covered LSU sports in Baton Rouge, and the University of Louisiana football and basketball for The Daily Advertiser/USA TODAY Network in Lafayette, the NBA’s Utah Jazz for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, and West Texas State basketball for the Amarillo Globe News in Texas.
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