Promise Kept: Penny Hardaway’s Memphis Tigers Are National Champions

On October 2^nd, 2019, The Athletic published a piece in which Penny Hardaway said, “We’re going to win a national championship.”

On March 28^th, 2021, Penny Hardaway delivered.

It was the first national championship game since Hardaway’s guarantee, with even the bastard tournament not playing theirs for another week, and it came in decisive fashion, as Hardaway’s Tigers weathered a strong end-of-the-first-half run from Mississippi State and never looked back.

This might not be the championship Memphis pictured. They probably pictured the blinding lights of Madison Square Garden, the pandemonic celebration in Times Square, and a wild parade down Beale Street back home. But while they didn’t get to hoist the trophy in the Big Apple, one could argue this championship was even more impressive than that would have been. After all, no previous national champion has overcome a raging global pandemic, and no national champion in a long time has won the NIT without playing on their home floor (didn’t fact check this, go with me here). To do this all while making good on the boldest of non-hot take guarantees? That’s historic stuff.

A few other notes:

• Memphis is currently rated as the best defensive team in the country by KenPom. Defense might not win championships everywhere, but it does in tournaments that count.
• Landers Nolley won the Most Outstanding Player award, largely from his 27-point outburst over Colorado State in the semifinals. He was efficient again yesterday, but he didn’t get too many touches, a testament to Memphis’s depth and Nolley’s dedication to the team.
• Louisiana Tech won a thriller to take third place, with Kenneth Lofton, Jr. (no relation to Kenny Lofton, as far as I can tell from Wikipedia and his smiling face) pouring in 27 and pulling down 13 boards. Conference USA has its hands full with that guy.
• Rice took home the WNIT championship, building off their 2017 Women’s Basketball Invitational title and prompting many to ask whether Tina Langley has surpassed Geno Auriemma as the best coach in the women’s game. Again, Conference USA is on a rocketship right now, and the destination is destiny.
• Congratulations to Alex Briseño, the man behind 2019 NIT CHAMPS, 4EVER, the winning entry in our bracket challenge. Alex, we’ll continue to be in touch about your prize, but right now it’s looking like the 2022 NIT tickets you requested plus a sticker and a t-shirt from us, The Barking Crow.
• Dr. ****D-19 was the closest on the first tiebreaker. There were, by my count, 406 turnovers in the tournament.
• I don’t understand was the closest on the second tiebreaker. There were, by my count, 505 fouls.
• We don’t have an answer for the third tiebreaker—which Vice Presidential birthplace is the closest to the eastern edge of the runner up’s campus. We don’t have coordinates for the historic marker on Kentucky 117 commemorating Adlai Stevenson’s, and without those, it’s too close to call whether his birthplace or that of Alben Barkley is closer to the easternmost point on the Starkville campus.
• Finally, thank you all for your contributions to NIT culture this season. The content won’t stop coming, even though we’re in the offseason (look out for One Shining MomeNIT later today), but the games are over. There is no more meaningful college basketball this year. What a season it’s been. We are so grateful to have had you here with us, and we cannot wait for the glory that will be the 2021-22 NIT campaign.