Why Penny Hardaway's sideline demeanor might be more jovial moving forward

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If you were inside FedExForum over the weekend, you might have noticed Penny Hardaway showing more emotion than normal.

Whether it was after Emoni Bates crossed over a defender en route to a rim-rattling one-handed slam, on the heels of the Tiger defense forcing a pair of 10-second violations in less than four minutes in the first half, or when Jayden Hardaway put a North Carolina Central defender on a poster with a ferocious dunk in the second half, the Memphis basketball coach was as animated and jovial as he’s ever been in a game that wound up being a 39-point blowout victory.

Whether Hardaway’s lighter demeanor caught the fans’ attention or not is largely inconsequential. All he cares about is whether his players detected it. Why? Hardaway broke it down during Saturday’s postgame press conference.

“They’re usually going to take on my personality,” he said. “If I’m uptight, they’re going to be uptight. I want them to be very loose, so I was conscious of (my personality) tonight.”

Hardaway went on to explain that after reflecting on his team’s general manner in the Tigers’ season-opening win, it could be directly attributed to his own poor body language on the sideline. He admitted to being “really upset” with a number of things that happened during the game against Tennessee Tech.

“I never got out of that mode, so tonight I was trying to be more supportive and happier,” he said. “You’ve got to celebrate the small wins with your team. They don’t always need to see you in coach mode. We want to have fun but not lose sight of what we’re trying to do.”

About those SC Top 10-worthy dunks, Bates and Hardaway weren’t the only ones showing out Saturday. Jalen Duren (who notched his first career double-double thanks to a 10-point, 7-rebound second half) threw down two more after putting up five in his collegiate debut. Lester Quinones had an impressive one-handed stuff as well. So, who won Saturday’s dunk contest?

The consensus among those surveyed afterward (Penny Hardaway, Earl Timberlake and Minott): Jayden Hardaway. The normally mild-mannered redshirt junior put his defender on his heels, broke for the basket and finished in raucous fashion, leaving his coaches and teammates either on their feet or sprawled on the floor on the seat of their pants.

“I would say Jayden’s was most impressive, because of his facial expression after,” Timberlake said. “He’s just so calm. Even when he screams, he’s still so calm.”

“When he does that, that’s the aggression he has inside of him, when he rips baseline and goes up and dunks over a guy” his father said. “That’s like his second dunk like that, we’ve just got to shorten the (time between them). Not a year apart.”

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You can reach Commercial Appeal Tiger basketball beat writer Jason Munz via email at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com and follow him on Twitter: @munzly

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Why Penny Hardaway's sideline demeanor might be more jovial moving forward