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Why Penny Hardaway Views Memphis Basketball's Time In The Caribbean As A Net Positive

PARADISE ISLAND, The Bahamas — Penny Hardaway wasn't mad.

Disappointed, sure, considering his Memphis basketball team repeatedly fell flat on its face for 31 minutes against Villanova in Friday's Battle 4 Atlantis championship game at Imperial Arena. Almost everything that could go wrong during that stretch did, as the Tigers found themselves trailing by 35 points, with nine potentially agonizing minutes left on the clock.

But Hardaway was far from demoralized.

Not after beating Michigan and Arkansas on successive nights. And not after the way the Tigers (5-1) responded late against Villanova — rattling off a dazzling 24-2 run — to help restore some dignity. Even though Memphis lost 79-63, outscoring the Wildcats 31-12 in the final 8:58 helped the team walk away with its pride intact.

When Hardaway met with reporters Friday evening, he had no trouble keeping the week in perspective.

"We can't take this entire (week) and just be in the dumps because we lost to a good team," he said. "We beat two really good teams (Michigan and Arkansas). And then the schedule I built, we go right on the road when we get home — three more really good teams (Ole Miss, VCU and Texas A&M).

"We're trying to build for March and April."

Senior point guard Jahvon Quinerly fought through a knee issue that he aggravated Thursday against Arkansas to score 12 points versus Villanova (where he played his freshman season). He said he sensed his team "let off the gas pedal a little bit" after a rousing victory over Arkansas on Thanksgiving Day, perhaps leaving feeling slightly overconfident.

So in his mind, Friday's dose of humble pie could very well turn out to be beneficial in the long run. He used the term "wake-up call" three times during the postgame interview.

"We needed something like this, I feel like, to wake us up," he said. "Hopefully, this is our wake-up call."

Whether it works is still to be determined. The Tigers get seven days off before traveling to Oxford, Mississippi, to face Ole Miss on Saturday (1 p.M., ESPN2).

But as he got set to leave paradise, Hardaway said he wasn't dreaming anymore. Villanova's 44-16 halftime lead and its 35-point advantage with less than nine minutes remaining was his fault.

"That's all on me," he said. "I have to take responsibility for that bad play in the first half. I have to take that and just be a better leader."

Hardaway admitted he would have liked to have sped up more in the first half, rather than waiting until late in the game to crank up the defensive pressure. Memphis forced six of Villanova's 10 turnovers inside the final 8:25 of the game. But he said the time he missed due to his season-starting three-game suspension has delayed the installation of some key defensive schemes that could have helped slow the Wildcats down sooner.

MEMPHIS BASKETBALL: Villanova blasts Tigers in Battle 4 Atlantis title game. Here are 5 takeaways

But what's done is done.

"We've got to go on to the next thing," Hardaway said. "It's only a loss if we don't learn from it."

Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.Munz@commercialappeal.Com or follow him @munzly on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Penny Hardaway views Memphis basketball's Battle 4 Atlantis result

Why Memphis Basketball's Ashton Hardaway Told National TV Audience: 'I'm Really Like That'

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Villanova Blasts Memphis Basketball In Battle 4 Atlantis Title Game. Here Are 5 Takeaways

PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas — Memphis basketball found itself in a figurative fight Friday against Villanova in the Battle 4 Atlantis championship at Imperial Arena.

There was a second half, which ended with the Wildcats a 79-63 winner. But the Tigers (trailing by 35 points with 9:12 left in the game) found their flow and their fight. They ripped off a 24-2 run late in the game to cut Villanova's lead to 69-56 with less than four minutes to play.

But the Wildcats' cushion was too much for Memphis to overcome.

Tigers coach Penny Hardaway admitted the first half gave him flashbacks to an 80-40 loss at Tulsa in early 2020.

"That first half was definitely a nightmare," he said. "We couldn't make a shot, we couldn't get a rebound — we couldn't do anything right. You could just see the team losing confidence by the second, and we never changed momentum.

"In the second half, the guys just said, 'Hey, we're just gonna go all out, you know — prove that we are better than what we showed in the first half. The true Memphis basketball was in the second half."

With Philip Davis, the prime minister of the Bahamas, seated courtside, Villanova (6-1) was clinical in its obliteration of No. 23 Memphis (5-1) through the first 20 minutes, especially at the 3-point line. Kyle Neptune's team made eight of its 19 long-range attempts before halftime and carried a 44-16 lead into the break.

Memphis defeated Michigan and Arkansas (No. 20 in this week's Associated Press poll) to reach the tournament's title game. But the Tigers were neither prepared for Villanova nor in sync at any point in the first half. They went into the break shooting 15% from the field (8% from 3) and committed eight turnovers (which led to 14 Villanova points).

David Jones, who dropped a career-best 36 points on Thanksgiving Day versus Arkansas, led Memphis with 13 points. TJ Bamba's 13 points led Villanova.

Here are five takeaways from the game.

Frigid from the field

No Tigers player was spared from the offensive offensive showing for much of the game.

With 11 minutes left and Villanova leading 59-27, only Caleb Mills (three), Ashton Hardaway and Jones (two each) had more than one field goal in the game. But even they were just a combined 7-of-20 at that point.

The rest of the team was 3-for-25 three-quarters of the way through the game. Jaykwon Walton came in as the second-leading scorer with 12.0 points per game. But nothing was working for him Friday, either: He finished 1 of 9.

It all added up to a hole too deep to dig out of.

"Villanova was the more disciplined team today," Jahvon Quinerly said.

So many 3-point shots

Exacerbating Memphis' woes was a near dearth of informed shot selection.

The Tigers' frontcourt found itself in foul trouble early, forcing Jordan Brown, Nick Jourdain and Malcolm Dandridge into limited minutes. Instead of altering the game plan, Memphis continued launching 3-pointers, which played right into the bigger Wildcats' hands.

Memphis got hot late to finish 7 of 25 beyond the arc.

Difficulty defending the 3

Villanova is not bashful when it comes to letting it fly. It entered averaging 27 3-point attempts per game.

So it's not overly surprising that it launched 35 triples against Memphis. What is a bit eyebrow-raising is how successful the Wildcats were at connecting. Averaging just 9.1 makes per game, they buried 13 against Memphis.

"I have a rule that you don't let people get comfortable in their sets," Hardaway said. "I just kinda left it up to the guys to kinda know who was who. We did a great scouting report. (But) short closeouts led to 3s, and they got like five or six in a row. We started pressing, and it put our backs against the wall. That kind of started the avalanche in a negative direction."

Oh, the rebounding

Even before Friday's game, Memphis' rebounding issues had been exposed.

In the first five games, its opponents were enjoying a plus-2.8 rebounding margin. Facing the Big East's Villanova, whose only loss this season came against Penn, didn't do anything to help matters.

The Wildcats had their way with the Tigers on the glass, finishing with a 41-36 advantage.

Jahvon Quinerly vs. His old team

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Quinerly transferred to Memphis this summer after spending three seasons at Alabama.

But before that, the New Jersey native had spent one season at Villanova. He played sparingly as a freshman in 2018-19, averaging 3.2 points per game.

Facing his former team for the first time, Quinerly found a groove late and wound up with 12 points.

"I don't know, it was kinda weird," he said. "Still having a relationship with some of those guys over there. It was a little bit weird."

Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.Munz@commercialappeal.Com or on Twitter @munzly.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Villanova blasts Memphis basketball in Battle 4 Atlantis title game

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