It didn't take Penny Hardaway long to show what he can do as a recruiter. Now, a talented Memphis team has its sights set on championship hardware


by Dick Weiss for TheAmerican.org


Penny Hardaway may not yet have the coaching pedigree of a John Calipari of Kentucky or Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, but he is on the fast track to become one of the best recruiters in the country.
 
Hardaway was an iconic legend Memphis long before he became the head coach at his alma mater two years ago.  He was an immensely popular hometown hero who was an NBA All Star and an Olympian who has put the Tigers back on the national landscape in college basketball in just his second year by beating out both Duke and Kentucky as the No. 1 recruiting class in the country, according to the long running Recruiting Services Combined Index — a composite score of rankings from four nationally recognized recruiting services -- Rivals.com, 247Sports; ESPN and Van Coleman.
 
The website, which has compiled rankings for the past 22 recruiting cycles, looks at the top-100 lists from each of those recruiting, assigns a point value to each recruit based on his overall consensus ranking, then adds the totals for all players in a class for the team’s final score.
 
The Tigers’ class of 2019 consists of five top-100 prospects — center James Wiseman of Memphis East (1); forward Precious Achiuwa of Montverde (Fla.) Academy (14); guard Boogie Ellis from Mission Hills in San Diego (36); forward D.J. Jeffries of Olive Branch, Miss. (45) and 6-5 wing guard Lester Quinones from IMG Academy in Sarasota, Fla. (60). Additionally, center Malcom Dandridge of Memphis East and guard Damion Baugh of Tennessee Preparatory Academy in Memphis were both borderline RSCI top-100 prospects.
 
“I would say Memphis basketball is back,” Hardaway declared.
 
This is another giant step forward for the American Athletic Conference, which put Houston in the NCAA Sweet 16 last year and is looking to place a team in the Final Four this upcoming season.
 
Hardaway led a team with little star power to a 20-win season and an NIT appearance last season. After the Tigers’ recruiting coup, the Memphis is suddenly in the preseason conversation of legitimate national championship contenders. The last time the Tigers were in this kind of rarified air back in 2008 when they advanced to the national final under Calipari.
 
“That’s what we want,” Hardaway said. “You know, this is Memphis. We don’t bluff. We want all the smoke. We want everything. We want everything to be about Memphis. If we win and hang out first banner in this building — or especially downtown at FedExForum — we are going to have to get talent and, with talent comes expectations and that’s what we want. We want to be part of the conversation.”
 
The signings of Wiseman, Jeffries, Dandridge and Baugh came as no surprise because of their local roots and previous ties to Hardaway. But the Tigers raised eyebrows when they locked up three impact national recruits - Achiuwa, Ellis and Quinones — within a two-week span in May.
 
“I think everybody thought it was going to be a show when I took over and thought it was just going to be local kids, and that I was going to have a problem recruiting across the country,” Hardaway said. “And they definitely underestimated what we could do. It’s really about relationships. If you call a kid, call the parents, and stay in tune with what’s going on and they stay in tune with you, and you can show them how things are going to go, and they watch your style and they like it, then you’ve got to feel that, ‘OK, this kid is really feeling us and wants to come to play with us.’ I think we shocked a lot of people.”
 
Wiseman, who played for Hardaway on the Nike EBYL travel team and later for a year at Memphis East, is the real deal. He was the key who jump started this flurry. “Guys wanted to play with him,” Hardaway said.
 
With that in mind, local artist and Memphis supporter Melony Walker came up with the idea to put together an special day thanking Wiseman for all he accomplished since moving to Memphis from Nashville two years ago—winning two state championships and just about every award out there during a McDonald’s All American and Nike Hoop Summit senior year.
 
Wiseman, who patterns his game after Kevin Garnett, is the leading candidate for the first pick overall in the 2020 NBA draft.  Hardaway has always been one of Wiseman’s heroes. He has had Hardaway’s picture on the screen saver of his computer since he was in sixth grade.
 
Wiseman wasn’t always a superstar. His favorite sport was baseball until he joined a local AAU basketball team at age 7. “The first day of practice, I tripped over my feet and the ball went off my foot,” he said. “I double- dribbled and the ball went off my foot.”
 
Wiseman was a quick study and eventually invited to play for Team Penny, a Nike EBYL team coached by Hardaway. “When I first met him, I was in awe,” Wiseman said. “I used to follow guys like him and Kevin and Shaq since I was little.”
 
At the time, the extroverted Wiseman was a strong student at the exclusive Ensworth School, a private academy in Nashville. He was a voracious reader who devoured books on basketball, horror and was curious enough to study Chinese Mandarin for three years. He transferred to Memphis East to work with Hardaway on a regular basis and averaged 25.6 points and 14.8 rebounds for East as a senior, punctuating his prep career when he jumped over an opposing player for a slam dunk. “That was my favorite play,” he said.
 
Memphis fans can’t wait to see what happens next.
 
The spotlight is shining brighter on this program and the coaching staff.
 
“I wanted this so badly, for so many reasons, and to be able to that in such a short period of time, I thank God for that opportunity,” Hardaway said. “That is what the fans wanted. This is what the city needed. This is what the school needed. For us to be relevant around the country again—in a positive light—and to see Memphis everywhere, that’s a big deal.”
 
The spotlight is getting brighter for both the program and Hardaway and the coaching staff, which includes former NBA player Mike Miller and until recently, former NBA coach of the year Sam Mitchell, who gave Memphis some recruiting pluses that don’t exist at Kentucky or Duke.
 
“We identify with the kids,” Hardaway said. “And our swag is different. We are not just normal coaches. We are players as well, along with being coaches.”