Penny Hardaway agrees to be next Memphis coach

[leopold]

Gary Parrish @GaryParrishCBS
Memphis President Dr. David Rudd said he estimates the men’s basketball program lost $4.7 million this season while season ticket sales dropped to around 4,000. That, as much as anything else, is why the school has made this change from Tubby Smith to Penny Hardaway.

Very short sighted IMO. Penny might sell some seats this year, but at what cost for the future?

The UCONN hire is much more important for out conference though.

I understand and acknowledge this point - too many times schools have taken a chance on old stars who never came close to getting it done as a coach. And as much as I understand why the city and boosters at Memphis turned their nose up at Tubby I still feel as though he got a raw deal (although he's still bringing home $10M after the firing, regardless of whether or not he gets a new job).

But the Penny hiring took minutes - literally minutes - to start turning around the program. Wichita State has already found out the hard way:

https://www.sbnation.com/college-basket ... alex-lomax

He's about to steal a 4* PG and Memphis is about to be on top of recruiting - Penny coached the No. 1, No. 26, and No. 40 recruits all on his high school team. That alone will put butts in the seats. If he can at all grow into a college coach the tigers are going to be a force.

[SMU Section F]

Gary Parrish @GaryParrishCBS
Memphis President Dr. David Rudd said he estimates the men’s basketball program lost $4.7 million this season while season ticket sales dropped to around 4,000. That, as much as anything else, is why the school has made this change from Tubby Smith to Penny Hardaway.

Very short sighted IMO. Penny might sell some seats this year, but at what cost for the future?

The UCONN hire is much more important for out conference though.

I understand and acknowledge this point - too many times schools have taken a chance on old stars who never came close to getting it done as a coach. And as much as I understand why the city and boosters at Memphis turned their nose up at Tubby I still feel as though he got a raw deal (although he's still bringing home $10M after the firing, regardless of whether or not he gets a new job).

But the Penny hiring took minutes - literally minutes - to start turning around the program. Wichita State has already found out the hard way:

https://www.sbnation.com/college-basket ... alex-lomax

He's about to steal a 4* PG and Memphis is about to be on top of recruiting - Penny coached the No. 1, No. 26, and No. 40 recruits all on his high school team. That alone will put butts in the seats. If he can at all grow into a college coach the tigers are going to be a force.

I think it's possible (even likely) that Tubby got a pretty raw deal and this is still the best decision for Memphis. The real key is if Penny can take this initial recruiting "boom" and translate it to success on the court. If he does, nobody in Memphis is even gonna remember Tubby was there...

[PonyLawExpress]

Penny will have some good teams for the first 2-3 years.

Next years team with Tubby was set up to be pretty solid and he will add Lomax and maybe another high quality guy like Anferene Simons or someone like that.

Then next year he will add Wiseman and all those Top 100 team Penny and Memphis East guys. Most of them are 1 or 2 and done guys.

After all the hype and the guys he has great connections with from coaching come and go in next 2-3 years he will have to start recruiting the old fashioned way and start coaching up talent. He needs to make the most out of the next 2-3 years and make the tourney every year, probably win a conf. title, and make a sweet 16 or 2 to help cement what he is doing. If he doesn't, alot of the shine will wear off and it will be hard for him to get that same kind of talent.

If he wins and make a tourney run or 2 with Wiseman and Co. then he might be able to live off the talent train for a while. Penny is a gamble, but it could go either way.

[Pony ^]

If Wiseman goes to Memphis and Maxey to SMU....looks like Kentucky's top 2 targets head to the AAC