AAC Basketball

The Memphis men's basketball team has minimized Rasheed Wallace's role with the team and removed him from in-person duties.

Head coach Penny Hardaway told reporters Wednesday that Wallace will serve as a consultant for the time being.

Penny didn’t close the door on Rasheed possibly returning in-person down the road.

Says Rasheed is “still a coach.” But said his in-person absence is a mutual decision based on “health and safety” concerns.

— Jason Munz (@munzly) January 19, 2022

Wallace, a four-time All-Star in the NBA, joined the Tigers in August as an assistant coach.

The exact reason for the move is unclear, though Hardaway confirmed on Jan. 12 that Wallace was in the COVID-19 protocols, thus taking him away from the team. He continued to work remotely with players through Zoom calls.

Star center Jalen Duren praised his contributions from afar.

More Jalen Duren on Rasheed Wallace: “Definitely a guy with a lot of energy and was a great mentor for the bigs when he was here and I definitely learned a lot from him.”

— Jason Munz (@munzly) January 19, 2022

The logic behind bringing Wallace onto the staff was obvious.

In discussing the hire, Hardaway highlighted the insight the 6'10" former forward might be able to impart upon the likes of Duren, Emoni Bates and DeAndre Williams.

In addition to helping the Detroit Pistons win an NBA title in 2003-04 and return to the 2005 NBA Finals, Wallace was a bit ahead of his time. He shot 33.6 percent from three-point range and averaged one made three-pointer per game. The 47-year-old would've been a perfect fit in today's game, which places a high emphasis on spacing the floor.

For Wallace, this was an opportunity to take the next step in his coaching career, but the partnership only made it a few months before hitting a roadblock.

This adds to an already disjointed season for the Tigers, one interrupted by a COVID-19 outbreak. Heading into Thursday's game against SMU, Hardaway's squad is 9-7 and tied for sixth in the AAC.

After losing two of their past three games, the Connecticut Huskies women's basketball team has fallen out of the Top 10 in the Associated Press rankings for the first time since 2005. 

In the latest AP Top 25 poll released Monday, the Huskies dropped four spots to No. 11. South Carolina (11-0) remained in the top spot and received all 29 first-place votes. 

Women's College Basketball 2021 AP Top 25 Poll (Week 7)

1. South Carolina (11-0)

2. Stanford (8-2)

3. Louisville (10-1)

4. Arizona (10-0)

5. North Carolina State (11-2)

6. Maryland (9-3)

7. Tennessee (9-1)

8. Indiana (9-2)

9. Michigan (11-1)

10. Baylor (9-2)

11. Connecticut (6-3)

12. Texas (8-1)

T13. Iowa State (11-1)

T13. Georgia (10-1)

15. Iowa (6-2)

16. Duke (9-1)

17. Georgia Tech (9-2)

18. South Florida (8-3)

19. BYU (9-1)

20. Notre Dame (10-2)

21. LSU (9-1)

22. Kentucky (7-3)

23. Texas A&M (9-2)

24. Ohio State (8-2)

25. North Carolina (10-0)

According to the Associated Press (via ESPN.com), Connecticut spent a record 313 consecutive weeks ranked in the Top 10 dating back to March 7, 2005. 

No. 10 Baylor now holds the longest active streak of consecutive weeks in the top 10 at 136. 

Connecticut announced Dec. 14 that Paige Bueckers, the reigning AP Player of the Year, is expected to miss eight weeks after undergoing surgery to repair an anterior tibial plateau fracture and lateral meniscus tear. 

She suffered the injury in the final minute of a Dec. 5 win over Notre Dame. 

In six games with Bueckers, the Huskies were 5-1 and averaged 62.3 points per game. They are averaging 59.7 points per game and have lost two of three games without the superstar sophomore. 

While head coach Geno Auriemma looks to find answers for UConn, Dawn Staley is doing everything right with South Carolina right now. The Gamecocks already have three wins over top-16 opponents: Connecticut, Duke, Maryland. 

This week will present a significant challenge for South Carolina. It will host No. 2 Stanford on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET. The reigning national champions have won four straight games, including a 74-63 victory over Tennessee at Thompson-Boling Arena on Saturday.     

The University of Memphis announced Saturday's men's basketball game against the University of Tennessee has been canceled because of COVID-19 issues within its program.

The matchup between the Tigers and the 18th-ranked Volunteers, dubbed the Nashville Showcase, was scheduled to take place at Bridgestone Arena.

Memphis snapped a four-game losing streak Tuesday with an impressive 92-78 upset over No. 6 Alabama. It was an important resume-building win for head coach Penny Hardaway's group.

The Tigers' matchup with the Vols was one of just three games against ranked opponents left on their schedule. Without it, they only have their two conference matchups with No. 14 Houston remaining, unless another team makes a surge from The American.

Depending how the rest of their season plays out following a 6-4 start, not getting an opportunity to take down the Volunteers could prove costly in their efforts to earn an NCAA tournament bid.

Meanwhile, UT was already on the court warming up for Saturday's game when word came down of the cancellation:

Vols walk off in disbelief after learning of the postponement of their showdown with Memphis. Team will scrimmage for the fans that are here at Bridgestone Arena @wvltrick pic.twitter.com/nJUAPSXjVA

— wvlt (@wvlt) December 18, 2021

The Vols are off to a promising 8-2 start highlighted by a win over then-No. 18 North Carolina in late November.

Tennessee's schedule gets tougher over the next few weeks as it prepares to host No. 8 Arizona on Wednesday before traveling to face the aforementioned Crimson Tide on Dec. 29.

With Saturday's cancellation, the Volunteers will continue to hold a 15-12 advantage in the all-time series between the in-state rivals.

Memphis men's basketball head coach Penny Hardaway provided a blunt assessment regarding his team's veterans following the Tigers' 67-63 loss to Ole Miss on Saturday.

"Everybody's trying to get to the NBA off the ranking we had, but nobody is willing to sacrifice minutes, touches, anything," Hardaway said in an interview with Seth Davis of The Athletic.

"It's been miserable ... I'm going to have to be a complete assh--e from this point on and only play the players that care. The main reason we have these losses is the veterans don't want to take the young guys under their wings. They want it to be about them."

Hardaway also said that there was "so much negativity in our locker room with veterans being jealous."

Memphis began the season with high expectations after adding a pair of highly touted 5-star recruits in Emoni Bates and Jalen Duren. The Tigers, who were No. 12 in the Associated Press preseason poll, rose to No. 9 after a hot start.

However, it's been all downhill after a 5-0 beginning. Memphis lost 78-59 to Iowa State and 82-79 to Georgia before falling to Ole Miss. The Tigers are in danger of falling out of the Top 25 entirely at this point.

In response to the skid, Hardaway promised changes to the starting lineup.

"I guarantee you we'll start winning because you're gonna see guys out there who care and will carry out the game plan," Hardaway said. "They might make mistakes, but there are not gonna be any character issues."

Saturday was a close game but an ugly one for Memphis, which shot just 38.8 percent from the field and 2-of-11 from three-point range. Bates and Duren combined to score just nine points on 2-of-13 shooting, and the Tigers committed 20 turnovers.

Ole Miss didn't fare well offensively either, but 20 points from Jarkel Joiner and 19 more from Matthew Murrell led the Rebels to the win.

Murray State is next on the schedule, with Memphis facing the Racers at home Friday. Murray State is off to a 7-1 start. The Tigers then have a pair of tough games with No. 16 Alabama and No. 13 Tennessee.

In other words, changes are a good idea for Hardaway as the team looks to stop this skid amid a tough stretch.

Mercy Miller, son of rapper and producer Master P, announced on Instagram on Monday that he has committed to play basketball at the University of Houston.

Miller is heading into his sophomore season at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis. Though 247Sports doesn't yet have composite rankings for the class of 2024, Miller had already earned scholarship offers from Houston, Minnesota and Hampton.

Master P also discussed the commitment on Instagram:

My son [Mercy] has already won a High School State Championship as a Freshman. For the future, he's focused on winning a College Championship where all the great legends came from like Elvin Hayes, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. And that's why he decided to make an early commitment to the University of Houston.

The 6'4" combo guard took an unofficial visit to Houston last week, according to Brandon Jenkins of 247Sports.

Miller's father has high expectations for the emerging talent. 

"In the state championship game at only 15 years old he had 15 points in that game, and he’s the No. 1 player in Minnesota so he’s just getting better and better," he told 247Sports.

Last season, Miller played alongside Chet Holmgren, the No. 1 overall recruit in the 2021 class. Jalen Suggs, the No. 5 pick in the 2021 NBA draft, also went to Minnehaha before starring at Gonzaga.

Master P, who was born Percy Miller, played some NBA Summer League and has appeared in the All-Star Celebrity Game. Mercy's older brother Romeo spent two years at USC but left and started his own music career. 

Emoni Bates will be playing college basketball after all.

The highly regarded prospect committed to the Memphis Tigers on Wednesday, per Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium.

Bates is a 5-star prospect and the No. 4 overall player in the class of 2021, per 247Sports' composite rankings. He decided to reclassify to the 2021 class in August.

He initially committed to Michigan State but decommitted from the Spartans on April 30.

"I would like to thank Tom Izzo and the coaching staff at Michigan State, but I have decided to reopen my recruitment," he wrote on Instagram. "I'm not sure what my future holds, but I am keeping all of my options open, both college and pro."

His decommitment came slightly more than two months after Enoch Boakye, who was a 4-star prospect on 247Sports' composite rankings, decommitted from Michigan State in February. Boakye eventually joined the Arizona State Sun Devils after he reclassified to the 2021 class.

As for Bates, it was once widely expected he would go the professional route after he decommitted from the Spartans.

Jeff Borzello of ESPN noted Michigan State was the only program that seriously recruited him because many were "skeptical that Bates will actually attend college, thinking he would potentially prefer to go to the G League for a year before the NBA."

In the end, he chose to play for head coach Penny Hardaway instead of following in the footsteps of previous prospects such as Jalen Green, Jonathan Kuminga, Isaiah Todd and Daishen Nix.

Bates, who 247Sports' Brandon Jenkins compared to Paul George, has the skill set to lead his new team to the Final Four as soon as his freshman season.

His versatility on both ends of the floor sticks out, as he can shoot over smaller defenders, take bigger ones off the bounce, facilitate to teammates when he penetrates and draws double teams, and defend multiple positions thanks to his length at 6'8" and his overall athleticism.

If he lives up to expectations at Memphis, he will likely be a high NBA draft pick in the near future.

He can also propel the Tigers to the next step considering they have not made the NCAA men's tournament since the 2013-14 campaign. The program is looking to return to national prominence and the Final Four, which it last reached in 2008.

Landing players like Bates is exactly how it can do just that.

Former NBA All-Star Rasheed Wallace is reportedly joining Penny Hardaway's coaching staff at the University of Memphis. 

Per Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, Wallace has agreed to a deal to become an assistant coach for the Tigers. 

Wallace was best known for his boisterous personality on the court as an NBA player. He was an integral part of the Detroit Pistons' run of success in the mid-2000s after being acquired in a February 2004 trade with the Portland Trail Blazers. 

The Pistons won the 2004 NBA title after adding Wallace to the roster. He averaged 13 points and 7.8 rebounds per game in 23 starts that postseason. He also helped the team reach the NBA Finals the following year and the Eastern Conference Finals every year from 2004-08. 

After retiring from the NBA following the 2012-13 season, Wallace was hired as an assistant by the Pistons on head coach Maurice Cheeks' staff. He remained with the team all season after Cheeks was fired midway through the year. 

More recently, Wallace has worked as a high school head coach at Charles E. Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina, in 2019-20. He was hired by N.C. Good Better Best Academy Eagles to coach the men's basketball team in June. 

Wallace will be reunited with former Pistons head coach Larry Brown at Memphis. Brown accepted an offer to be an assistant for the Tigers in July.

Hardaway is entering his fourth season as head coach at Memphis. The former Orlando Magic star has a 63-32 record at his alma mater, but they have yet to make the NCAA tournament.    

Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame head coach Larry Brown revealed that he contracted the Delta variant of COVID-19 while attending the 2021 Nike EYBL Peach Jam Basketball Tournament in Augusta, South Carolina.

"Unfortunately I got sick, right after it was over, I got that delta variant, and I was kind of out for about 10 to 12 days, but I'm all good now and anxious to get back," Brown said on the Jason and John Show on 92.9 FM ESPN (h/t Claire Kuwana of the Memphis Commercial Appeal).

The 80-year-old Brown also said that he is vaccinated and made a full recovery.

Brown now works as an assistant coach under Penny Hardaway for the University of Memphis. The two men were at the tournament to watch Jalen Duren, a 5-star center from the class of 2021 who has committed to Memphis.

Brown's lengthy resume included an NCAA Division I men's championship with Kansas in 1988 and the 2004 NBA title with the Detroit Pistons. He notably coached seven different NBA teams from 1988-2010.

As a player, he won an Olympic gold medal for Team USA in the 1964 Summer Games.

Memphis Tigers head coach Penny Hardaway is trying to lure Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown back onto the sidelines, again. According to John Martin of The Athletic, Hardaway is hoping Brown will join him as an assistant coach after striking out on him three years ago.

Memphis coach Penny Hardaway has once again targeted Hall-of-Fame coach Larry Brown to be a part of his staff as an assistant coach, according to sources. Brown, 80, is the only coach to have won an NBA title and NCAA Tournament.

— John Martin (@JohnMartin929) June 9, 2021

CBS Sports' Gary Parrish reported in 2018 that then-Memphis athletic director Tom Bowen was "hesitant" to add Brown to Hardaway's staff after the former Kansas and NBA coach resigned at SMU in 2016 following an NCAA investigation into the program.

Brown was suspended for 30 percent of the Mustangs' season in 2015-16, and the program was banned from postseason play, after the NCAA cited Brown for failing to report academic fraud violations. He last coached with Auxilium Torino in 2018, but was fired from the Italian league following a 5-19 start to the season. 

Still the only head coach to win an NCAA title and NBA championship, the 80-year-old New Yorker hasn't served as a college assistant coach since working under Dean Smith at North Carolina from 1965-1967, though he's occasionally returned to KU—where he won the 1988 NCAA tournament—to unofficially sit in on practices.

Brown told Martin an offer from Memphis has been discussed for a while now, but nothing has been made official—even as Hardaway continued to pursue him. 

I talked about Larry Brown on the show earlier this week. It’s been in the works for a while. Hardaway never stopped wanting Brown after encountering resistance from the previous administration in 2018. Brown would obviously bring unparalleled coaching acumen to Memphis.

— John Martin (@JohnMartin929) June 9, 2021

Brown briefly coached Hardaway from 2004-2006 when the two overlapped during stints with the New York Knicks. 

Hardaway, 49, led Memphis to an NIT title in 2021 but is just 63-32 in three seasons without an NCAA tournament appearance despite stellar recruiting classes. The program appeared on track for the 2020 tournament before it was canceled because of COVID-19 .

The head coach hopes the next time he takes the court, he has Brown by his side helping lead the charge to the Tigers' first Final Four since 2008. 

UConn head women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma spoke out against the transfer portal system in college sports Wednesday.

According to ESPN's Harry Lyles Jr., Auriemma said: "It was gonna be a mess from the beginning, and it's a mess now, and it's going to be a bigger mess each and every year. A lot of these kids are delusional. You know, they have so many voices in their ear."

Auriemma took issue with the fact that there are 1,000 college athletes in the transfer portal, 200 of which haven't been contacted by another school and won't be returning to their previous school.

The 11-time NCAA women's basketball tournament-winning coach also expressed his belief that there is a double standard, noting that it is OK for a player to transfer without a concrete reason, while coaches can't revoke a scholarship for poor performance.

Auriemma added:

"There's something wrong with the recruiting system, there's something wrong with the culture of college basketball today, there's something wrong with the entitlement that happens to exist today.

"And there's something wrong with this idea of, you know, student-athlete welfare, that everything should be done to accommodate the student athlete, with no regard whatsoever, to the coaches who work their ass off, to recruit these kids in the first place, work with them, help them get better, make them the player that they are. And then they up and leave with no consequences whatsoever."

Transferring is easier than ever in college sports, as the requirement to sit out a season before playing for a new school has been eliminated for first-time transfers.

That has led to the transfer portal being flooded with players in every major sport during every offseason, and that has been the case with women's basketball as well.

While Auriemma isn't against the elimination of having to sit out for a year, he feels significant issues have led to the influx of transfers:

"But 1,000 kids? One thousand, it's unbelievable. And now, it's, you know, with the one time transfer, not having to sit out. Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree. I think it's great. But there's got to be something wrong with the culture if it's this bad. On both ends—on the kids, and then the coaches—there's got to be something wrong."

Since UConn is among the top teams in women's college basketball on a yearly basis, it tends to attract many of the top recruits.

That can make it difficult for players on the lower part of the roster to get playing time, resulting in some transfers.

Per Lyles, sophomore guard Anna Makurat and freshman guard Autumn Chassion both entered the transfer portal following the 2020-21 season.

Auriemma also used the transfer portal to his advantage, though, landing forward Dorka Juhasz from Ohio State.

UConn has not won a national title since 2016, but it has reached the Final Four every year since then, and with reigning Player of the Year Paige Bueckers returning for the 2021-22 season, the Huskies will be among the top picks to win it all.