Penny Hardaway to Memphis?

[KmanTA]

It's all over the Commercial Appeal's website as well.

[Dan]

Clyde Drexler says good luck

[pinstripers]

Gary ParrishVerified account@GaryParrishCBS 11m11 minutes ago More

• Copy link to Tweet
• Embed Tweet

SOURCES: Memphis is seriously considering replacing Tubby Smith with Penny Hardaway, who is “actively preparing to be a college head coach” and already identifying possible staff members — among them Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown.

[ShockdaWorld]

That doesn’t sound like trouble at all...

[pinstripers]

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/memphis-officials-seriously-considering-penny-hardaway-to-replace-tubby-smith/

[Cdizzle]

lol Penny with Brown.

The NCAA should probably request an office in the Memphis athletic department.

[ShockTalk]

So this arrangement is actually the head coach is the assistant "head" coach while the "in name" head coach front man is the head coach in waiting.

[proshox]

Penny is an interesting situation. He can land a top five recruiting class on day one, but nobody knows if he can actually coach.

[WheatShock]

Penny is an interesting situation. He can land a top five recruiting class on day one, but nobody knows if he can actually coach.

Rumor is that Larry Brown might join the staff as an assistant. If that happens he should be covered in the "coaching knowledge dept" while he learns how to coach at this level, of course Memphis would also be on probation by his 2nd year in all likelyhood.

[AndShock]

If Brown is gonna be there I don’t know why they don’t just have him be HC for a year or two like he was at SMU. Maybe Memphis is hoping they can avoid some penalties if he commits violations as an assistant.

[Cdizzle]

Brown never got hit with a show-cause?

The NCAA is a mess.

[Shoxfan11]

Why not go all out and grab Pitino and Donnie Tyndall to round out the staff?

[proshox]

Perfect! You might as well go all out

[Walker]

This seems like a pretty bad idea if Memphis goes through with this. Tubby could get a little bit of credit for Texas Tech’s success they’re having right now and Memphis has played better towards the end of conference play. He just broke free from the fiasco with the two brothers that had their father on the staff last year and although he’s lost out on some local recruits, he’s still much more of proven commodity than Penny. This would just create more instability for Memphis.

[BostonWu]

Can a school put conditions on the release of a LOI?

[1972Shocker]

Yes.

[BOBB]

Will Little Penny have a role?

[Rlh04d]

Where is the evidence that moves like this have worked in the past? What makes it different from Ollie at UConn -- except Ollie inherited a good team? Slightly higher name recognition with parents?

[Walker]

I don't see how this would help Memphis in any ways with exception to recruiting and bringing back more fans to FedEx Arena for the sake of nostalgia. With Patrick Ewing at Georgetown, at least he had some assistant coaching experience in the NBA for a while but I think that was even a bad idea.

[Rlh04d]

It's early for Ewing, but yeah, the early results are not good. Not only is hiring an unproven legend like this risky as hell, but a firing becomes so much worse when it's a program legend.

[Anthroshock]

The move would be all about Memphis cashing in on nostalgia to get butts in the seats,. They've lost a lot of money not hitting attendance marks FedEx. Season ticket sales are way down too.

[Stickboy46]

Yup, they lost an 800k payment this year from the FedEx forum due to not having high enough attendance.