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Penny Hardaway Admits To Installing New Offense And Defense At Memphis Just A Few Days Before First Game

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Penny Hardaway Memphis Basketball Packages Install Offense Defense
© Chris Day/The Commercial Appeal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Penny Hardaway will begin his eighth college basketball season as the head coach at Memphis on Saturday. The Tigers only recently started to get ready.

They waited until the week before the season to install the defense and just a few days before their first game to install the offense.

This timeline presents a stark contrast to the rest of college basketball. It doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense in terms of preparation.

Memphis has high expectations.

Although the Tigers have not finished with less than 20 wins in the Hardaway era and won two conference championships, they have yet to advance beyond the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Last year’s team earned the highest seed in program history at 29-5 only to lose in the first round.

Hardaway is on the clock. He must take his alma mater deep into March Madness this season to avoid additional chatter about his job.

Memphis must also avoid a situation where it finds itself sitting on the bubble come selection Sunday in March. That requires a strong start to a challenging early-season schedule, which includes games against Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, Baylor, San Francisco, Louisville and top-ranked Purdue.

All seven of those teams could absolutely play their way into the field of 68. It’s a tough stretch for the Tigers and it starts on Saturday against the Dons.

Penny Hardaway waited until the last minute.

The first college basketball practices for the 2025-26 season began at the end of September. Most teams were back in the gym by Sept. 24.

And even prior to that point, they had all summer to meet, watch film, and prepare.

With that in mind, most college basketball programs started to look at their offensive and defensive game plans as early as five months ago when players reported back to campus. Not specific game plans for specific opponents, but general systems on both sides of the court. They worked through plays and schemes. They practiced specific in-game scenarios.

Memphis apparently took a different approach.

Penny Hardaway admitted — on November 5th — that his team started to install its defense at the end of last week. The offensive install is still in progress.

“We finally put in our defensive packages, and we just started putting in our offense right now,” he said.

Here are his full comments:

Maybe this is gamesmanship and Hardaway is lying but I don’t think so. He seems pretty serious, which raises one major question.

What took so long?

The Tigers have practiced together for more than a month. At no point did they try to install the offense or defense. Not even before the exhibition scrimmages. It’s all new for the players, with less than seven days until their first game against a quality mid-major opponent.