Penny Hardaway, with his Memphis basketball roster finally set, is ready to turn his attention toward filling out his coaching staff.
The Tigers’ eighth-year coach has at least two vacancies he wants to fill before the 2025-26 season gets underway. His team is set to host a preseason exhibition game against Arkansas on Oct. 27, then open the regular season against San Francisco on Nov. 8.
Hardaway said he had conversations earlier this offseason with one high-profile name Tigers fans are plenty familiar with: Will Barton. The former Memphis star retired in April after an 11-year NBA career and expressed some interest publicly in venturing into coaching.
“There (were) discussions probably three months ago with Will,” said Hardaway. “(But) we haven’t spoken to him in a while. We’re trying to get him on the path to getting his degree and helping him do that. Any role he wants to come back to, he’s more than welcome.”
Hardaway’s comments came before a reception for the Penny Hardaway Memphis District Golf Classic at the National Civil Rights Museum on Sept. 25. He said he’s still looking for an assistant coach and a staff member who can spearhead offensive analytics, adding his reasoning for the delay boils down to a desire to maintain the strong chemistry already in place on his staff.
“Just after what happened last year, last September with the coaching changes, then going through and having the best regular season yet, it gets kind of scary when you’re thinking about adding things,” he said. “Because you’ve got the chemistry. That’s what’s been taking me a little longer.
“But we do probably need to add one more, maybe two more pieces. Going into my eighth year, I kind of know what I need. What’s needed. It’s time to start looking into that right now.”
Memphis basketball got ‘lucky’ with Tariq Ingraham
From a roster standpoint, Hardaway is very high on the finished product following the addition of Rider transfer big man Tariq Ingraham.
The 6-foot-9, 240-pound center committed to Memphis on Sept. 11, and his formal signing was announced by the program Sept. 22. Ingraham averaged 10.9 points and 7.0 rebounds a game at Rider last season, but he went the majority of the offseason awaiting clearance from the NCAA for a seventh season of competition.
Once he got it, Hardaway and the Tigers were ready.
“Come on, you know, you don’t get this lucky this late in the game,” he said. “Because, you know, waivers don’t usually go through. His waiver went through. With us, we just stayed consistent with the relationship. And all the other schools gave up, because they felt like well, it’s so late, it’s not going to happen. And then it happened. And we were right there to take him.”
From the minute he arrived on campus, Ingraham proved to Hardaway he was ready for action.
“His skillset on the court in the first couple days, it’s like he’s been playing all along,” Hardaway said. “(You might think) he’s out of shape. He hasn’t played, he’s been trying to get a waiver. Obviously when you’re doing things in the gym on your own with a trainer, it’s different from playing five-on-five and getting up-and-down. But he’s the piece we needed with the size and the skillset and everything.”
New Memphis basketball roster is ‘second-best’ Penny Hardaway has had, Tigers coach says
With Ingraham now in the fold, it has Hardaway feeling far more encouraged about the outlook for the Tigers this season.
Hardaway has long asserted the roster he assembled for the 2021-22 season was the most talented of his tenure at Memphis.
“To me, (this season’s is) the second-best roster, fully,” he said. “From talent, the Jalen Duren, Emoni Bates, DeAndre Williams, Landers Nolley – that group was super. That should’ve been a Final Four team, honestly. We just couldn’t get it right.
“Talent doesn’t mean all, but it’s definitely the second-most talented team (I’ve had at Memphis). Just (because of) depth. Now, we’re not talking about the top three, four, five. Just depth, one through 15, this is the second-most talented.”
Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com, follow him @munzly on X.