CBS: Memphis officials seriously considering Penny Hardaway to replace Tubby Smith

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BleedGopher

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per CBS:

Memphis legend Penny Hardaway is "actively preparing to be a college coach" and has already started identifying possible future staff members, multiple sources have told CBS Sports. Meantime, Memphis president Dr. David Rudd told the Commercial Appeal on Tuesday that his administration is "going to evaluate the program at the end of the year," which effectively confirms what CBS Sports has learned: Memphis is seriously considering firing Tubby Smith and replacing him with Hardaway.

An attempt to reach Hardaway for comment was not immediately successful.

The former NBA All-Star currently runs the Team Penny Nike EYBL program and serves as the coach at East High in Memphis -- where he has assembled an incredible roster favored to soon win a state championship. Between Team Penny and East, Hardaway has ties to three top-40 players in the Class of 2019 -- No. 1 James Wiseman, No. 26 D.J. Jeffries and No. 40 Chandler Lawson.

A source told CBS Sports one person Hardaway would likely target for a position on staff is Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Brown was on 92.9 FM ESPN in Memphis on Feb. 26 and spoke glowingly about Hardaway.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-b...dering-penny-hardaway-to-replace-tubby-smith/

Go Gophers!!
 

Would find it very odd if this happened. He ran off most of the team after last season to get rid of what he considered the bad apples. Their AD was okay with that as he didn't let him go then, knowing that this year would be a re-build, so why let him go now? 19-12 and 5th in the American is actually overachieving given the rebuild imo. Buyout is still in the $9-10M which is way too steep for an AD to justify to bring in a guy who's never coached a college game. Memphis fans may also point to the recruiting class they have coming in, but to play devil's advocate Tubby backers could easily point to this 'terrible' class from 4 years ago in his deffense:

http://www.espn.com/colleges/basketball/recruiting/school/_/id/2641/class/2014
 

This would be a rotten move by Memphis, but when one considers the history of that program, not at all surprising. It would be fitting if Memphis did this, while at the same time bringing Larry "Who, Me?" Brown back into college coaching.

As Gopher Skipper pointed out, Tubby's actually done a nice job in Season 2. They were expected to be garbage.
 

They would be so incredibly stupid to do this, but I wouldn't put it past them.

Memphis has somewhat overachieved this year. Picked 9th in the preseason conference polls and finished 5th.
 



Unless I'm wrong, Penny has virtually no coaching experience at any level.
 


They want to dump Tubby because he has a bad recruiting class coming in and he has no chance to get some big time players in the area next year.
 




A guy with AAU connections and zero college coaching experience with Larry Brown as his right hand man? I'd put the over/under on the first NCAA violation at 2 months. And I'm taking the under.
 

SelectionSunday said:
This would be a rotten move by Memphis, but when one considers the history of that program, not at all surprising. It would be fitting if Memphis did this, while at the same time bringing Larry "Who, Me?" Brown back into college coaching.

As Gopher Skipper pointed out, Tubby's actually done a nice job in Season 2. They were expected to be garbage.
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The "history" of the program? The history of the program. Not sure why it would be rotten.

unc has quite a "history" too. Sure is easy to mention Memphis and oh soooooo easy to ignore the "blue bloods".
 

BarnBurner said:
The "history" of the program? The history of the program. Not sure why it would be rotten.

unc has quite a "history" too. Sure is easy to mention Memphis and oh soooooo easy to ignore the "blue bloods".
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It's easy to mention Memphis here because this has to do with Memphis. Not sure what UNC has to do with the story. There've been many comments about UNC in the past.
 

GophersInIowa said:
It's easy to mention Memphis here because this has to do with Memphis. Not sure what UNC has to do with the story. There've been many comments about UNC in the past.
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Do share the history of Memphis, GII. See any parallels with unc?
 





There will always be a special place in my heart for Penny Hardaway. He was my favorite NBA player growing up. I would practice dribbling hours a day because I wanted to be a PG, just like Penny. However, he does not deserve to get this job over Tubby right now. Memphis seems to have a very spoiled and entitled fan base. Just like Gopher Skipper posted, this season was absolutely expected to be a rebuild, and Tubby has definitely overachieved with the lineup he has. Some might point to his upcoming recruiting class as means to fire him, but man, he doesn't deserve to be fired after two years.
 

gopherguy15 said:
There will always be a special place in my heart for Penny Hardaway. He was my favorite NBA player growing up. I would practice dribbling hours a day because I wanted to be a PG, just like Penny. However, he does not deserve to get this job over Tubby right now. Memphis seems to have a very spoiled and entitled fan base. Just like Gopher Skipper posted, this season was absolutely expected to be a rebuild, and Tubby has definitely overachieved with the lineup he has. Some might point to his upcoming recruiting class as means to fire him, but man, he doesn't deserve to be fired after two years.
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As long as they can tie that in with lower attendance and a poor culture there should be no problem with firing Tubby
 

Memphis seems very territorial as they always seem to want one of their own coaching and the fan base really gets upset if a local kid goes elsewhere and has any amount of success.

Sound familiar?
 

LongLiveMilesTarver said:
Memphis seems very territorial as they always seem to want one of their own coaching and the fan base really gets upset if a local kid goes elsewhere and has any amount of success.

Sound familiar?
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I remember when Randy Carter chose Minnesota, and the locals in Memphis COULD NOT BELIEVE IT.
 

GFBfan said:
As long as they can tie that in with lower attendance and a poor culture there should be no problem with firing Tubby
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Memphis just needs an upset win as an 11 seed over a "disinterested" 6 seed in order to hit the superfecta.
 

Gopherguy0723 said:
They want to dump Tubby because he has a bad recruiting class coming in and he has no chance to get some big time players in the area next year.
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Where have I heard that before?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 


Tubby recruited the Memphis area pretty well while he was here.
 

matt said:
Tubby recruited the Memphis area pretty well while he was here.
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Blast from the past.. Is this your first post in a couple years?

Tubby should have never left TT.
 

I would guess if Penny lands the Memphis job they would have the inside track on signing Anfernee Simons for obvious reasons.
 



Tubby's attorney claiming that he can't get any of the top local recruits because Penny controls them and wants his job.
 

So reminiscent of the way things played out in Minnesota but here he blamed failures on promises of a new practice facility that never happened. Sure they would help but no one takes a job based on what might happen.

The school administration misrepresented their chances of joining the Big 12
 

LongLiveMilesTarver said:
Tubby's attorney claiming that he can't get any of the top local recruits because Penny controls them and wants his job.
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Pretty bold strategy to say you should keep your job because you can’t get any of the good local recruits.



“I can’t get any of the good recruits that normally would be interested in the school...so you have to keep me”
 

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