Penny Hardaway admits ‘some’ Tigers failed to fight in loss to SMU

MEMPHIS – Did the Memphis Tigers really quit on national television Sunday?

That’s been the hot topic around college basketball since the U of M’s blowout loss against SMU when the Tigers were embarrassed by 27 points in a game where Memphis had everything to play for. Even the announcers, during the game, called out this Tiger team for its lack of effort against the Mustangs.

Even Penny Hardaway himself admitted postgame that some of his players — not all — but some had failed to show the fight you’d expect from a team that’s playing for its NCAA Tournament lives.

What makes things even more troubling is that Hardaway admits this problem, on this team, has been lingering for a while.

“This is terrible. This is not competing at all. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s not competing. Not all guys. Don’t try to do that to all the guys. Seems like some have, though. It’s been going on like that for a minute, though,” Hardaway said. “It’s been just the same guys all year. I don’t know what it is. I just don’t know what it is. We’re winning, they were unhappy. We’re losing, they’re unhappy. So it is what it is. We’re just trying to fight around a lot of stuff. At the end of day, we’re going to finish the season strong. This isn’t us quitting. We’ve got guys that want to continue to fight.”

The Tigers open a two game homestand Wednesday night against Charlotte.

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