Throughout his coaching career, Dan Hurley has never been one to go easy on the officials. And honestly, officials give him plenty of leeway to complain. But every ref has their limit, and on Monday, Hurley crossed that line at the worst moment.
It essentially lost his team the game in the process.
In the opening round of UConn’s Maui Invitational matchup with Memphis, the Huskies overcame a double-digit deficit in the final 2.5 minutes to force overtime. Momentum was clearly on UConn’s side. But when Liam McNeeley was called for an over-the-back foul, Hurley couldn’t help himself.
Rather than let the (correct) call go in a tie game, Hurley berated the officials. And it doesn’t take expert lip-reading skills to see that Hurley got personal with it too.
— NCAA Buzzer Beaters & Game Winners (@NCAABuzzerBters) November 25, 2024
Hurley was called for the technical, which sent P.J. Carter to the line for four three throws. He made all of them.
What would have been a one-possession game, turned into two just like that. And it had nothing to do with the players on the court. UConn was able to get a final look at the end, but those two points were so costly in the 99-97 loss.
Senior forward Tyreek Smith will not play college basketball for the Memphis Tigers, who begin their season at 8:00 p.m on Monday.
Just hours before the NCAA men’s basketball season tips off, Smith reportedly entered the transfer portal. The redshirt senior now looks to play for his fifth collegiate program, although he never actually playing a regular season game for the Tigers.
Smith has previously played for SMU, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech.
NEWS: Memphis forward Tyreek Smith has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, @PeteNakos_ reports.
Smith played in one of the Memphis exhibition games before the season began, though he later requested some personal time away from the team.
He also missed time during the preseason due to an ankle injury and wore a brace on his right foot.
The senior remains eligible to play for a new program once the fall semester ends in December, per Commercial Appeal. But finding a fifth school to take a chance on him could prove difficult at this point.
The battle between Herbstreit and Florida State fans rages on
For maybe the first time ever, college football saw Cal fans on social medai trolling Florida State fans about their Week 4 matchup before Cal had even played its Week 3 game against San Diego State.
These are strange times in the ACC, to be sure, but this new conference rivalry may be hard to top. What else would you honestly expect from an undefeated Cal team visiting a winless FSU program?
Sadly, we cannot technically count that as one of pettiest Week 3 moments. Fortunately, we have more than enough trolling of Florida State to hold us over until those powerhouses(!?) kick off in Tallahassee.
Kirk Herbstreit: Defender of Florida State’s integrity
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Florida State fans did NOT like ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit before this season and they probably won’t like him anymore after his tongue-in-cheek dig on College GameDay last week.
Herbstreit became the face of FSU’s contempt after the team was snubbed from the College Football Playoff following a season-ending injury to quarterback Jordan Travis.
Well, with their season on the ropes before losing to Memphis last Saturday, Herbstreit mocked the “disrespect” coming from the rest of the GameDay panel who picked against Florida State. It was well played, you gotta admit.
Memphis Tigers: Destroyers of Florida State’s integrity
There was trolling before the game. And there was even more trolling after FSU lost to Memphis.
Now, the Tigers could’ve chosen any number of ways to mock the 0-3 start by the program that poached their last coach, but they chose to focus on the very strange tactic of using water guns at practice.
Anyone remember when West Virginia was ranked No. 2 in the BCS poll back in 2007 only to get upset on its home field by unranked Pitt, which was a four-touchdown underdog before the game.
The final score was 13-9.
As former WVU fullback Owen Schmitt said, “We blew it against the [expletive] [expletive] team in the [expletive] world.”
In case you did forget, Pitt had a helpful reminder before hosting (and beating) WVU again on Saturday.
The Crimson Tide hadn’t played in Madison since 1928, a full 64 years before House of Pain released “Jump Around”. So you can’t blame Alabama for embracing the tradition at Wisconsin games on Saturday as they beat the Badgers, 42-10. Especially since it appeared plenty of fans had already left the stadium before the end of the fourth quarter.
Washington State’s Apple Cup victory puts Cougars on the map
According to a Wednesday report, former Duke basketball star Nolan Smith will join Penny Hardaway’s coaching staff at Memphis.
Former Duke basketball star Nolan Smith is back in the world of college basketball.
According to a Wednesday report from The Daily Memphian’s Parth Upadhyaya, Smith will serve as an assistant coach for Penny Hardaway and the Memphis Tigers.
Smith played for the Blue Devils from 2007-11, and his 1,911 career points are 18th in school history and the seventh-most of any player this century. He and current Duke coach [autotag]Jon Scheyer[/autotag] teamed to win a national championship in 2010, the fourth title in school history. Smith scored 13 points in the championship game, a 61-59 victory over Butler, while Scheyer added 15 points of his own.
As a senior in 2010-11, Smith averaged 20.6 points per game.
A first-round pick in the 2011 NBA draft, Smith briefly played for the Portland Trail Blazers before returning to Durham as an assistant coach in 2016. He left for Louisville in 2022, where he’d spent the previous two seasons before this Memphis job.
Memphis is arguably the biggest non power conference brand in college sports, but are they a fit in the rebuilding Pac-12?
The Memphis Tigers have long been among the top candidates to join a power conference, and the recent additions of four Mountain West schools by the Pac-12 once again put the Tigers back in the conversation.
Memphis has been a powerhouse in the American Athletic Conference for a little over a decade, with a strong run in Conference USA before that.
The Tigers have won three bowl games since 2020, including a win in the Liberty Bowl over Iowa State last year to cap off a 10-3 season.
2024 is off to an even better start. After beating Florida State on Saturday, Memphis is now the top candidate to earn a guaranteed bid into the 12-team College Football Playoffs out of the Group of Five conferences.
The Pac-12’s four new additions from the Mountain West give them six programs, with a minimum of eight needed by July 2026 in order to compete at the FBS level. Could Memphis be moving to the Pac-12 in 2026? We look at the pros and cons:
The Pros
Memphis is arguably the most recognizable college brand that isn’t currently affiliated with a power conference, outside of maybe Gonzaga.
The Tigers have won seven or more games in nine of the past 10 full seasons on the gridiron, and 19 or more games in every single season in the AAC except one…when they went 18-14. The sustained success in both football and men’s basketball is second to none among Group of Five programs, making them an easy target for a conference hoping to bolster the quality of programs in its arsenal.
Memphis is also a premier media market, and while the geography isn’t exactly a fit with the current six Pac-12 members, the idea of adding a footprint in Tennessee and the southeast is no doubt a major draw for the conference. Getting to do so while also adding a program that elevates the competition level of the two revenue generating sports is a win-win.
The Cons
Geography. It’s easy to simplify the cons into one word, but effectively it is the biggest issue facing Memphis and the Pac-12 as a fit. Memphis fits far better in the Big 12 geographically, and if university leadership thinks that’s an option it could prevent them from accepting an invite into the Pac-12.
For the Pac-12 to make this work, likely another team joins alongside Memphis as a travel partner. Plenty of options exist for the conference to consider, including Tulane, Tulsa, and UTSA, but it does make Memphis a slightly trickier target as they would be on an island out east without a travel partner.
Recent reports surrounding the men’s basketball program and Penny Hardaway could give the Pac-12 some pause as well, although nothing substantial is confirmed as of this writing.
Verdict
Memphis is perhaps the most obvious target for the Pac-12 at this point, and unless the program wants to wait to see if a Big 12 invite is coming this should be a no brainer on both sides. The geography is a factor, but if another team (Tulane seems to make the most sense) emerges as a travel partner, this could get done pretty quickly.
Whoever convinced Florida State that the transfer portal QB they needed was DJ Uiagalelei and not any number of significantly better options, should never work in football again.
No preseason top ten team had ever begun a season 0-3 against unranked opponents until Florida State’s loss to Memphis on Saturday.
The Florida State Seminoles were unable to ignite their offense after an 0-2 start to the season, falling to the Memphis Tigers on Saturday by a score of 20-12.
Although the ‘Noles have yet to surrender more than 28 points in a contest this season, the offense has been completely non-existent – as evidenced by Saturday’s abysmal performance. Florida State scored just one touchdown, a four-yard run from Roydell Williams late in the third quarter to take the score from 20-3 to 20-9.
Quarterback DJ Uiagalelei had another poor performance, completing just 16 of 30 passing attempts for 201 yards and an interception. Through three games the former Clemson and Oregon State signal caller has completed under 58% of his pass attempts with 465 yards and one touchdown, and it’s fair to wonder how much longer he will keep the job under center.
The ‘Noles futility is now breaking records, as CBS reporter Shehan Jeyarajah noted Florida State is the first preseason top ten team to start a season 0-3 against all unranked opponents.
Florida State hosts new ACC member Cal in Week 4, and after the Golden Bears defense held Auburn to just 14 points in Week 2 it’s hard to be too optimistic win number one is coming next week for the ‘Noles.
Penny Hardaway subject to massive recruiting violations according to anonymous letter turned over to NCAA by Memphis officials.
Memphis Tigers head coach Penny Hardaway fired a trio of assistant coaches, and one additional staff member, according to a team announcement on Wednesday morning.
Moving on from a coaching staff after a disappointing season is one thing, but doing so in September – when the practice period begins in less than three weeks – is a sign things are not going well for the Tigers.
That was confirmed by a report from Pat Forde at Sports Illustrated on Wednesday evening, detailing the existence of an anonymous letter which alleges widespread potential rules violations at Memphis – a letter which the university confirms has been passed along to the NCAA.
“The University of Memphis is aware of the anonymous letter and it has been turned over to the NCAA,” university spokeswoman Michele Ehrhart said in an email to Sports Illustrated on Wednesday. “That is all we can say on the matter.”
It’s unclear at this point if the four firings and this letter are related, but no reason was given for the firings, which came at a time in the offseason where hiring new coaches is far more difficult.
The letter alleges Hardaway, who is entering his seventh season at Memphis, is personally involved in the recruitment of a player who came to Memphis and a second prospect who ultimately did not enroll. The letter claims the violations occurred in 2020 and 2022, and also claims academic violations occurred in 2023-24 as well.
This is not the first time Hardaway and Memphis have come under fire. There was an 18-month investigation into Hardaway’s recruitment of James Wiseman, who was ultimately suspended 12 games and left the school before the suspension was up. While Hardaway was ultimately found not to have violated NCAA rules, the school was still put on probation.
Last year Hardaway served a three game suspension for recruiting violations, and one of his players, Malcolm Dandridge, missed the last five games of the season while the school investigated his eligibility.
All the off court drama is coupled with the simple fact that Hardaway has only made the NCAA Tournament twice in his six seasons with the Tigers, winning a game in 2022 against Boise State before falling to Gonzaga in the Round of 32.
With limited on court success, significant noise off the court, and massive roster and coaching turnover year over year, the Hardaway experiment in Memphis may be nearing an end.
Is he off his rocker for picking those teams over the Irish?
Not every pundit and analyst has Notre Dame as a shoo-in for the [autotag]College Football Playoff[/autotag].
ESPN’s Matt Barrie unveiled his predicted 12 playoff teams, and the Irish are notably absent.
His list seems pretty uncontroversial until the final three: Missouri, Utah and Memphis. While Missouri is a popular pick for the back end of the field, Memphis over Notre Dame raises some eyebrows, even if Memphis could get in as a conference champion while Notre Dame’s independence limits it.
It’s not that Memphis will not necessarily be good enough to qualify — I expect the Tigers to be in the hunt. It’s that I think the Irish should be improved over last season, and they have a slightly easier than usual schedule. The combination should result in an easier path to the playoff. Especially now that head coach Marcus Freeman is entering Year 3 and has had a chance to work out some of his issues.
That’s not to say a Notre Dame playoff appearance is a given. It never is for any team: Injuries and bad luck happen. The Irish have also had seasonlong letdowns more than a few times during my fandom.
Still, if the Irish are healthy and play up to expectations, they should be in the playoff, even if they do have a loss or two at regular season’s end. At the very least, it seems unlikely they will not be in while Ole Miss, Missouri, Utah, and Memphis are ALL in the playoff.
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Memphis guard Caleb Mills had his waiver denied by the NCAA and is out of college basketball eligibility after five seasons.
The Memphis Tigers will not get another season of eligibility for guard Caleb Mills, who had his appeal denied by the NCAA according to The Commercial Appeal on Tuesday.
Memphis coach Penny Hardaway indicated the school applied for a medical hardship waiver for Mills after he suffered a season-ending knee injury in early January, which limited him to just 14 games on the year.
However, according to NCAA rules a medical hardship waiver can only be applied if a player appeared in 30% or less of a team’s scheduled games – and Mills appeared in about 44% for the Tigers this past season.
The 6’3 guard averaged 7.9 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 1.4 assists last year for Memphis, who went 12-2 while he was on the floor and 10-8 after he went down with his injury, ultimately missing the NCAA Tournament.
Last season was Mills’ first with Memphis. Prior to that he spent two years at Florida State, averaging 12.8 points and 3.0 assists in 58 games, and before that he was at Houston for two seasons, appearing in 31 games as a freshman in 2019-20 and four games as a sophomore in 2020-21 before suffering an injury.
Memphis rebuilt their roster via the transfer portal, adding four guards: Tyrese Hunter from Texas, PJ Haggery from Tulsa, Colby Rogers from Wichita State and Baraka Okojie from George Mason.
Mills would have given this team a familiar face and a veteran scorer, but the team is equipped to move on without him as his college career comes to an end.
