By JAMES MADDEN
Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway is entering a crucial ninth season as the head coach of his alma mater, with Memphis failing to qualify for the NCAA Tournament last season and chatter surrounding Hardaway’s heating up throughout the offseason.
The Tigers have consistently been one of the top spenders in the AAC, holding one of the most recognizable brands in the conference but Hardaway felt that a $5 million NIL budget wasn’t enough headed into the 2026-27 season. With the Tigers in need of a March Madness berth this season, Hardaway told the Field of 68 at AAC Media Day on Monday that he contributed nearly 90% of his salary to boost the program’s budget, attempting to build the roster even more.
“We had $5 million, and then I had to put $2.6 million of my own to try and build the roster up,” Hardaway said. “The old Memphis was before NIL, where you could go out and recruit the top guys. I had two No. 1 recruiting classes in my first four years—over Duke, over Kansas, over Kentucky.
Hardaway, who spent 14 seasons in the NBA, has earned more than $120 million across his playing and coaching careers according to estimates, making the loss of a year’s salary doable as he looked to rebuild the Tigers’ roster this past spring.
The Tigers are coming off a disappointing 13-19 (8-10 AAC) season, in which they entered conference play as the top-ranked team in the American’s preseason poll. A late-season, seven-game losing streak capped off the disappointing campaign and led to Hardaway’s job security heating up despite being arguably the program’s greatest and most accomplished player.
“It was brutal for sure,” Hardaway said in Tampa on Monday. “Coming off that horrible season, it was more about getting back to being me and getting back to getting the guys that I knew would come in and believe in the buy-in. That’s what I did.”
A school whose identity hinges on the success of the basketball program, Memphis added nine transfers this past spring, four of which came from high-major teams.
Memphis’ list of nine transfers is headlined by Texas A&M transfer Josh Holloway, Northwestern transfer Jayden Reid, NC State transfer Jerry Deng and Pittsburgh transfer Brandin Cummings, with five other transfers coming from other mid-majors.
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