What's it like to watch a Memphis basketball game with Penny Hardaway? I found out | Giannotto

It was Jaykwon Walton who finally convinced Penny Hardaway to say what he was really thinking.

Walton couldn’t secure the defensive rebound, but then raced down court for a potential 3-point play, contorting his body to score through a defender’s contact. Inside FedExForum, the crowd stood and saluted the sequence. Inside a Lakeland sports bar, over the din of the announcers’ praise, Hardaway lingered over the first part. The missed rebound.

This is what triggered him to ask the question that will define the team he wasn’t allowed to coach at that particular moment.

“Got a lot of guys with potential – like Jaykwon,” Hardaway said as Walton missed the free throw. “Will they ever hit it?”

These were among the insights Hardaway revealed Friday night when he permitted The Commercial Appeal to watch with him and a few friends inside the Owners Box Sports Grill when the Tigers beat Alabama State, 92-75. This is also where he watched Memphis beat Jackson State and Missouri because of the three-game NCAA suspension he had to serve for recruiting violations.

Hardaway is still bothered by the decision. He discusses it as if serving a prison term – albeit one that comes with flatbread pizzas, housemade kettle chips, french fries, wings and pasta.

“I just wanted to plead my case and it turned from two to three (games),” Hardaway said. “I’m going to do my time, which I have. But I just don’t know why it went from two to three.”

So Hardaway officially began his sixth season as a college coach not near where he lives, nowhere near his team, and not at the restaurant that bears his name across the street from FedExForum.

Hardaway said he couldn’t watch at the team’s practice facility under the terms of the suspension. He didn’t want to watch at home. He spent all day Friday watching basketball there. But he had been to Owners Box, which opened in August, a few weeks prior to the beginning of the season. He enjoyed the atmosphere, with 27 televisions all around the walls and two more large projector screens.

“He loved the place, loved the food and took my number down,” Owners Box owner Philip Cox said. “I never thought he’d call.”

But there Hardaway was, dressed in all-black Memphis gear, walking through a side door leading to a private room about 15 minutes before tipoff. Most of the customers – many of them clad in Tiger blue and gray to watch the game just like Hardaway – had no idea who was behind the sliding door they walked past heading to the bathroom.

By this third game, Hardaway even had a routine.

“I’m very superstitious. I’ve got to sit in the same seat every time. I drive the same way to the games,” Hardaway explained. “If we had lost, I’d be sitting in a different seat.”

A window into Penny Hardaway the coach

Perhaps only Hardaway was wary of losing this last game before Memphis heads to The Bahamas for the highly anticipated Battle 4 Atlantis event over Thanksgiving. He predicted this would be tougher than most anticipated because Alabama State coach Tony Madlock, his former teammate and assistant coach at Memphis, knows the Tigers as well as anybody.

So as the first half unfolded like he expected, Hardaway began typing notes on his phone. Memphis was sloppy – and too blurry. Hardaway, like everyone else not at FedExForum, had to deal with the inconsistency of watching on ESPN+.

The screen inside Hardaway’s private room buffered for the first time with less than 14 minutes left in the first half, right as his son, Ashton Hardaway, completed a slick assist for a dunk. The game went completely dark for a few moments right as Alabama State began to rally.

“Man, this is crazy,” Hardaway lamented.

For a while, he largely remained stoic as the Tigers sputtered through their final home game for almost a month. Even news that Michigan and Arkansas – the team Memphis will face Wednesday and the team it might face Thursday – had suffered upsets elicited little more than a head nod.

But then Alabama State cut the Memphis lead to one. Hardaway started talking to the players on the screen.

“Give the ball up. One more. Don’t hold the ball,” Hardaway said, and then David Jones nailed the 3-pointer his coach didn’t want him to take. “We’ve got to move the ball.”

“Oh my God,” he said when Memphis didn’t switch screens properly on defense.

When Memphis entered halftime, Hardaway listened intently as acting coach Rick Stansbury broke down the first half on the broadcast. Hardaway noted his halftime message would have been similar.

“I’d be disappointed with our hustle,” Hardaway said. “We look like we’re just going to win the game. We should be past that phase right now.”

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'Time to prepare for The Bahamas'

The second half produced similarly mixed emotions. A few minutes in, Hardaway was ready to declare this the Tigers’ worst performance in terms of “hustle points” and “shot selection.” He let out a stifled laugh at the bad or forced shot attempts.

But then Memphis inevitably began to pull away, and Hardaway began to accept this game for the underwhelming affair it was destined to become with so many more marquee opportunities awaiting these Tigers.

He declared Jones the team’s best rebounder on a night when Memphis gave up 25 offensive rebounds. When asked why, Hardaway simply pointed at his heart.

When told Memphis had held Alabama State to 31.4% shooting, Hardaway sounded like he was already preparing for Saturday’s practice.

“You play defense like that, if you rebound the ball, it gets scary,” he said.

All these conversations eventually lead back to what this team could be, not what it is right now. To whether Hardaway and these Tigers can reach their potential by March.

Tonight, though, Hardaway was just glad this was over. The game and the suspension.

“Time to prepare for The Bahamas,” Hardaway said.

Time for him to coach again.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on X: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: I watched Memphis basketball game with Penny Hardaway. Here's what I saw