End of the road? Penny Hardaway’s tumultuous Memphis tenure has sadly taken an exhausting toll

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It’s never boring.

People can say a lot of things about the basketball program Penny Hardaway is running at Memphis — and, boy, people sure have been saying a lot of things about the basketball program Penny Hardaway is running at Memphis — but one thing nobody can ever say is that it’s boring.

It feels like there are allegations of Level I recruiting violations and academic fraud and NCAA investigations and lawsuits and just about anything else you can imagine all the time. The program recently wanted to accept a young man who is now a felon after being convicted of firing a gun into a car filled with people. More recently, the program was reportedly recruiting a young man who had bounced through two schools already, the latter of which after being charged with sexual assault. And now this, with Memphis acknowledging Wednesday to Sports Illustrated that it has handed over a letter to the NCAA from an anonymous author that alleges multiple rules violations within the men’s basketball program.

It’s never boring.

Those keeping track of things already know that Hardaway, the seventh-year coach of his alma mater, has thus far enrolled more top-ranked recruiting classes (two) than he has won NCAA Tournament games (one). He’s also endured more NCAA investigations than the number of times he’s finished in the top two of his mid-major conference — and he’s still never secured even one regular-season conference championship even though, again, he’s coaching in a mid-major conference and, again, he’s already enrolled two recruiting classes that literally ranked No. 1 in the entire country, according to 247Sports.

It’s never boring.

But the question that needs to be asked now is whether it’s all just too … exhausting. I mean, is anybody, other than folks who just love to bang on Memphis, enjoying this anymore? Are any Memphis graduates — even the ones like me who wanted badly for Hardaway to get the job when he got the job and have rationalized lots of the nonsense more often than we probably should have — enjoying this anymore?

I’m not.

If you know anything about me, you know I hate to be wrong. But, if you know anything about me, I hope you also know I’m not too big to admit when I’m wrong. And, at this point, it’s pretty clear I was wrong when I publicly campaigned for roughly a year for Memphis to fire Tubby Smith and hire Penny Hardaway.

This hasn’t gone the way I anticipated or hoped.

I. Was. Wrong.

(Sigh)

I wasn’t completely wrong, though. Things actually got off to an encouraging start.

First and foremost, Tubby, an honorable man and excellent coach who simply wasn’t a good fit at Memphis, needed to go. I wasn’t wrong about that. And then the whole thing with Penny really did begin exactly how I predicted it would begin — with a city supporting its favorite son by filling up an arena that had been too empty, and by making Tiger Basketball feel like it mattered again during a time when Ja Morant and the Grizzlies were growing much more popular with young Memphians. And those big recruiting classes I predicted would come? They enrolled! And, suddenly, the Memphis brand was once again resonating nationally more so than it ever had since Derrick Rose moved back to Chicago in 2008 and John Calipari relocated to Kentucky in 2009.

I was right about that stuff.

But mixed in with all of that stuff has just been one weird thing after another — from the investigations, to the 5-star recruit leaving the team midseason, to the constant revolving door of assistant coaches who have worked under Hardaway, many of whom I’ve spoken with over the years having described the experience as “a circus” and/or “chaotic.”

(It’s never boring!)

And, again, now there’s another unfortunate headline with Memphis officials acknowledging that they’ve turned over to the NCAA documents alleging major rules violations by Hardaway and his staff, which may or may not have something to do with why four Memphis assistants were essentially fired Wednesday, less than nine weeks before the start of the season. To be clear, there is no actual proof of anything in the documents, at least not in the documents obtained by CBS Sports. But the allegations are big. And, if true, they are big enough that they would likely leave new Memphis athletic director Ed Scott no choice but to force the school’s greatest alum to step down only weeks after Scott replaced Laird Veatch as the university’s top athletic official.

It would be great if it didn’t come to that.

Nobody who cares about Memphis wants it to come to that. This is a place where some are still genuinely heartbroken by the way the university’s first favorite son, Larry Finch, was fired in 1997 after, for whatever it’s worth, actually accomplishing a ton more as a coach in his first six years at his alma mater, and in his last six years at his alma mater, and, honestly, in any six-year combination of the 11 years Finch spent at his alma mater, than Hardaway has accomplished in six years at the same place. Whenever Penny starts to think he’s being treated unfairly, or harshly, by his friends in Memphis or foes outside of it, he should understand that the man who once coached and loved him was fired after flopping less frequently and accomplishing way more.

Now, if you’ll allow me to take off one hat and put on my other hat — the hat that I was raised on, a hat with a big ‘M’ on it, the hat I wore when I cut grass in the summers around Grandma Jewell’s house as a teenager so that I could maybe buy a ticket to go see Penny Hardaway play DePaul at The Pyramid, the hat I blacked-out in at RP Tracks, the hat I wore the night I graduated, if you’ll allow me to put on that hat — I’m compelled to tell you that this really does suck.

It sucks for the city to be in this situation.

Few are yelling for the school to end this now. And, just so we’re clear, I’m not even whispering that the school should end this now. But, that said, no basketball program run this way — with a constant turnover of coaches and players, some of which could be rationalized if there were any real on-the-court accomplishments to offset the string of goofy headlines, no basketball program run this way — could possibly be enjoyable for anybody who cares both about the city and the university, which is most of us.

So where are things headed next?

Honestly, who knows?

But let the record show — and, more importantly, let the city of Memphis, Penny, and all of its and his fans know — I’m still hoping there’s a way to stabilize things, learn from whatever mistakes might’ve been made and move on in a way that actually leads to my 14-year-old self’s favorite basketball player winning the national title he once predicted he’d win. But, as my 7-year-old son might say, “I’m worn out, bruh.” When I was 10, I could name you the Tigers’ starting lineup — plus Denny Crum, Pervis Ellison and LaBradford Smith. My 10 year-old son knows Penny. That’s it. Interest is way down in and around Memphis these days.

That’s depressing.

Memphis Basketball Since 2009-10 Season

I will not, and never will, try to speak for every Memphis fan or graduate — but I’m comfortable telling you it appears most of them have never been more ready to move on. If there’s a way to salvage things and achieve greatness, yes, I think most of them would love to salvage things and achieve greatness.

But no serious person expects that anymore.

At best, we’re just hoping for that.

But no serious person expects that anymore because serious people, after a while, stop believing in things that never materialize. So far, heading into a seventh year that feels like the 70th, very little of what Hardaway promised when he was introduced — by the way, when he was introduced before ever working a single day on a college campus, as the head basketball coach of a place that had participated in three Final Fours before he even entered the profession — has materialized. I hate to write and highlight that. But it’s true. And it’s also why it’s difficult to continue to rationalize tolerating the never-ending stream of embarrassing stories without the results other scandal-ridden coaches use to get lifetime contracts.

Win a lot, and it helps.

But when you lose to Rice and Tulane in the same month while also only owning one victory in the NCAA Tournament through six years — more specifically, one NCAA Tournament victory over a Mountain West school that’s best known for having blue turf for football games, and that has never itself actually won a game in the NCAA Tournament — then it becomes a way harder sell, both figuratively and literally.

None of us wanted this.

Again, it sucks.

But only a foolish person would see what their eyes are seeing, and hear what their ears are hearing, and just ignore it all in the spirit of nonsensical loyalty. What many have called a circus from the jump has undeniably turned into exactly that, at least in sports terms.

If there’s a way to fix it, I hope Penny Hardaway finds it.

But, even if there might be a way to fix it, the man currently in charge of fixing it, Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway — the first high school basketball star I became enamored with, the prep basketball phenom some coaches have told me is the best they’ve ever seen — hasn’t given us any reason, through six years in this job, to believe he’s capable of finding it.

That’s the unfortunate truth, all these years later.

And it’s not just unfortunate.

It’s also sad — a sad situation that started off so well but has consistently unraveled to the point where it’s now difficult to see Penny fully bouncing back. Simply put, far more-accomplished coaches have been fired for way less, and the truth is that the only reason Penny Hardaway remains the coach at Memphis is because he’s Penny Hardaway. Change his name to John Smith, or Josh Pastner, or even Larry Finch, and this rollercoaster ride would’ve already ended. As it is, we’re all still riding it.

But is anybody enjoying this anymore? Does anybody believe in this anymore?

The season starts Nov. 6.

Barring a surprise, Penny Hardaway is expected to make it there. As always, we’ll see. It’s never boring, not round these parts. But, these days, boring doesn’t sound so bad.