Returning Memphis basketball strength coach Darby Rich breaks down Tigers' revamped roster

The Memphis basketball team hopes Monday's 2023-24 opener is the first step toward playing on a national stage.

When the Tigers welcome Jackson State (7 p.m., ESPN+) to FedExForum, what fans will see is the culmination of months spent grinding away behind the scenes — especially in the weight room. That's where Darby Rich comes in.

The Tigers' strength and conditioning coach returned to Memphis in July. After two seasons working under coach Penny Hardaway in the same role, he left for Texas Tech in 2021. But upon his return, Rich was greeted with mostly a blank slate. Malcolm Dandridge and Jayden Hardaway are the only Tigers who have worked with Rich before. In an interview with The Commercial Appeal, Rich evaluated each scholarship player on the roster, plus Jayden Hardaway.

Jonathan Pierre

"He's a 6-foot-10, really skilled forward. God blessed him with a good body, in terms of his size and length and aesthetics. But we're working a lot on his hip mobility. He's actually pretty strong. He just can't always put it to use, because he finds it tough to get in some positions."

Jayhlon Young

"I think our fans are going to love him. Great worker. Unbelievable motor. I kinda have nicknames for all the guys, but since we have like nine J's, I've had to veer from calling any of 'em 'J.' So, I call him JYD, like the old wrestler, Junkyard Dog. He's not a guy I ever have to motivate. If they all worked like him, they wouldn't pay guys like me very much."

Nick Jourdain

"A stud. If you take on-court and weight room, he's probably our most consistently high-level hard worker. When he runs the floor every day, when we're doing our measurables and our technology, he runs the floor harder than everybody. His workload every day is top three. Jumps the highest. Runs the hardest. He's in unbelievable condition."

Jordan Brown

"He has come a long way with his body since he got here. He's really only lost, I think, about 10 pounds. But he's lost about 8% body fat in that 10 pounds. Matter of fact, somebody asked me the other day, 'Is Jordan losing too much weight?' I said, 'He hasn't lost any weight in about a month. He's just wearing it different now.'"

Ashton Hardaway

"Great kid. Hard worker. Obviously, he's not a clone of his dad at 18 years old. He's got his dad's feel, his IQ. He can shoot the cover off the ball. We're just working to develop all of his athleticism. He needs to get stronger, quicker. Needs to jump higher. But he's super compliant with anything he's asked to do, and he does it with a great attitude."

Carl Cherenfant

"Another guy, kind of like Jayhlon Young, that I think the fans are gonna love. Another Junkyard Dog type guy. Super athletic. He's just having to learn that no matter how much work you put in, if you don't eat to follow suit, it's hard to make the kind of strides you want to make. He's always asking me if he can put ranch (dressing) on his food. I'm like, 'Your whole plate has less calories than what you're about to put on it.' That tends to happen with young guys."

David Jones

"Super lower body strength. He can do 500 on the deadlift 10 times. He can squat whatever I put on the bar. But I have to keep in mind what's best for him long term and not take any chances. Unbelievably strong lower body. Upper body strength: not even in the same neighborhood. So, trying to play catch-up there. But great worker. Pushes others. The kind of guy you want on your team."

Caleb Mills

"He's the quintessential — the kind of guy you have to save from himself. If there's a spare minute in the day, he's gonna be in the gym or the weight room. To the point that sometimes you can get negative returns. Boogie (Ellis) was like this, too, when he was here. If you give a diamond to a stonecutter, he grinds on it to a certain degree and you've got a beautiful stone that's worth a lot of money. But if you keep grinding, you got a pile of dust that's not worth anything. What matters is when they put 40 minutes on the clock. Not three days before or two hours before."

Jaykwon Walton

"Jaykwon is an interesting case. I think it took some time for he and I to find our place. It's funny, because I kind of went through that with Precious (Achiuwa), too. Like, 'I'm here for you, but there's a certain way we have to do things to get you where you want to go.' I think he knows I have his best interest at heart. He's gotten a lot better lately than he was just during the first month he was here."

Jahvon Quinerly

"I'm fortunate, because Jahvon is a guy who's already had two very good strength coaches. But with him, we're trying to find a spot to keep him healthy. He's not a guy I need to reinvent the wheel with. We've got to figure out what has worked for him and find that little bit extra to give him a chance to make his last year his best year.

"When you've got a guy coming off a major injury (Quinerly tore the ACL in his left knee in March 2022), a big part of the recovery is getting that confidence back to put your foot in the ground as hard as ever and not even think about it. I think this year will be the first year post-ACL that JQ will feel like JQ."

Malcolm Dandridge

"He trusts me, so he allows me to push him on his bad days. I think Malcolm does hurt. I don't think he milks injuries. He's got a big, strong body. But God just didn't give him the best knees to carry it around on. He looks great right now. He's running. He's jumping good.

"I would say, just for me, the eye test, he looks more like he did when he was a freshman or sophomore. But I don't care about what he looks like as much as him being available for about 40 games this year."

JJ Taylor

"He's that 6-9, 180-pound freshman that you get, where the first thing you or someone else may want to say is, 'Man, if you just put 20 pounds on this kid, he's a pro.' But JJ's frame isn't ready to carry 20 more pounds at 18 years old. So, it's just a daily process to get him to learn how to move better. As he continues to do those things, he can get stronger, so that when he is 21 and weighs 195 pounds, it's not artificial weight. He's not a guy that can't wait to get to the weight room. But little by little, he's started to understand why it's good for him and how it can help him."

Jayden Hardaway

"He's a grown man now. When I left, he was a kid. He's bigger and stronger, but in some ways, some of that extra muscle weight has made him more susceptible to minor tweaks. Bigger isn't always better. When I left, I think he was 198 pounds with 4.8% body fat. When I got back, he was like 217, but he's 7.1% body fat. It's not like that's bad. But we're looking like, 'What if we get you back to 206 with 5% body fat?' Maybe that's the difference in practicing and playing more and not getting nicked up."

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: Memphis basketball strength coach breaks down revamped roster