How long do you think it’ll take them to get to NCAA tourney, a top 25 ranking & the Sweet 16?
I predict never under Penny.
Just don’t see a HS coach winning big in college without experience.
I Ike Penny and I have a lot of Memphis friends so for their sake I hope he does okay. And agrees to play the Hogs.
Penny’s value will not be as a tactical guy on the bench. His value will be keeping all the Memphis kids in Memphis. The question there will be whether his star power be able to keep the Blue Bloods such as Kansas and Kentucky from getting the top kids there.
They could get in the top 25 in three years or so, but the Memphis area talent is not a guarantee of dominating that conference. They have two serious basketball schools in that conference, Cincy and Wichita State, and a rising Houston program. They will have to pass either Cincy or Wichita State to hang around the Top 25 more than occasionally. To do that, Penny will have to do something he’s never done-be a successful college basketball coach.
He’s going to be very short of players next season, and not even Memphis’ academic standards can get enough non-signees in school to make the 18-19 team good, although I would not be surprised if they pick up a couple of transfers who can play in 2019-20. They will probably do real well with the 2018-19 recruiting class, since they will have a shiny new Penny and all those connections in the area. They will still have a good story to sell for the 19-20 recruiting class, so barring a complete disaster in the way the program is being run, I would expect they will be pretty good in 2020.
There are a couple of factors that may get in the way of long-term success. First, no one really knows if Penny can coach college basketball. Some legendary players make good coaches, some are lousy, and AAU ball and Memphis East don’t really tell you one way or another what will happen.
Second, keeping the Memphis program out of trouble could be tough. They certainly have a number of boosters with lots of dough and a creative attitude towards program development. Some of the money people who were willing to buy Tubby out may think that all the Memphis area basketball power brokers will stick together and get behind Penny, because he knows how things are supposed to work in Memphis. They may figure that since this will be a program run by locals with a coach who was a product of the good old days and who is familiar with the way the AAU etc. circuit and Memphis high school programs run, they will be able to get, one way or another, all the players they need to become an elite program. Keeping every body happy will probably be tough over the long haul, and there are of course lots of people connected with other schools in the area who will be more than happy to see the Tigers get whacked by the NCAA.
I think it is going to be really hard for Memphis to run a clean program, or at least one that doesn’t get caught, with Penny as the coach.
I was about to post what you said, but you beat me to it and said it better than I would have , thx!
GHG
I think UConn will return to the top, if they get the hire right replacing Kevin Ollie. That state is right in the middle of a huge base of hoops talent, and the state is Husky nuts. They have the same approach to NCAA rules as Tiger High does (i.e., a mere annoyance), and more talent in the region to draw from.
Penny was my favorite player growing up as a kid. Loved the Penny commercials and had to have all of his basketball cards. You couldn’t tell me anything bad about him. With that said, I believe Penny sabotaged Tubby.
Tubby is a great coach, all he does is win every where he goes. He even won 21 games this year with a roster that most felt didn’t have many quality players. When you look at Texas Tech’s success Tubby set all of that up, he started that program trending upwards and Beard has taken it to the next level.
Penny basically black balled Tubby with all the Memphis kids to make sure he wouldn’t have a chance at Memphis. When Tubby first got the job it was heavily rumor that he’d add Penny to the staff, and once Tubby was hired he quickly shut down those rumors. I think Penny felt slighted by that. And kinda made it his mission after that to shut Tubby down and find a way to get himself as the head coach. It’s funny, because as soon as Penny took the job all these top Memphis kids are now trending in 24/7 crystal ball to now go to Memphis. You mean to tell me none of the top Memphis kids want to play for a coach that’s sent numerous amount of kids to the NBA, won a national championship, and been to the tournament every stop he’s been at? Penny absolutely used his Memphis connections to make sure no one played for Tubby. And I can’t respect that.
Didn’t that happen here with someone that felt slighted by Nolan, and aimed it at Mike?
You talking about the Flanigans?
That might be the names, Cotton was another name mentioned a few times.
Really good players don’t always make good coaches. Think Sid and Corliss for example…We will see about Penny.
I sense the objective is to compare Penny to Mike Anderson.
My answer is slower than Mike Anderson at UAB, same as Mike Anderson at Missouri and faster than Mike Anderson at Arkansas.
Mike reached Sweet 16 in his 2nd year at UAB, in his third year at Missouri (Elite Eight in fact) and has not done that at Arkansas yet.
Penny will do it in 3 years.
Good indication that Arkansas may be the hardest place to recruit to along with SEC enrollment standards.
[quote=“nlrbuzzard”]
They could get in the top 25 in three years or so, but the Memphis area talent is not a guarantee of dominating that conference. They have two serious basketball schools in that conference, Cincy and Wichita State, and a rising Houston program. They will have to pass either Cincy or Wichita State to hang around the Top 25 more than occasionally. To do that, Penny will have to do something he’s never done-be a successful college basketball coach.
He’s going to be very short of players next season, and not even Memphis’ academic standards can get enough non-signees in school to make the 18-19 team good, although I would not be surprised if they pick up a couple of transfers who can play in 2019-20. They will probably do real well with the 2018-19 recruiting class, since they will have a shiny new Penny and all those connections in the area. They will still have a good story to sell for the 19-20 recruiting class, so barring a complete disaster in the way the program is being run, I would expect they will be pretty good in 2020.
There are a couple of factors that may get in the way of long-term success. First, no one really knows if Penny can coach college basketball. Some legendary players make good coaches, some are lousy, and AAU ball and Memphis East don’t really tell you one way or another what will happen.
Second, keeping the Memphis program out of trouble could be tough. They certainly have a number of boosters with lots of dough and a creative attitude towards program development. Some of the money people who were willing to buy Tubby out may think that all the Memphis area basketball power brokers will stick together and get behind Penny, because he knows how things are supposed to work in Memphis. They may figure that since this will be a program run by locals with a coach who was a product of the good old days and who is familiar with the way the AAU etc. circuit and Memphis high school programs run, they will be able to get, one way or another, all the players they need to become an elite program. Keeping every body happy will probably be tough over the long haul, and there are of course lots of people connected with other schools in the area who will be more than happy to see the Tigers get whacked by the NCAA.
I think it is going to be really hard for Memphis to run a clean program, or at least one that doesn’t get caught, with Penny as the coach.
[/quote] I think you hit the nail on the head. The state championship he just won may have to be forfeited due to 2 transfers to East that played on Team Penny. He better have a compliance “team” keeping him out of trouble
I think most all of that could be true, although I won’t speculate. I will say this: Tubby has had trouble recruiting all of his career. Penny might’ve been steering these kids, but Tubby and his style were also not appealing to the kids.
I wonder which signing bonus was higher, as a Memphis coach or player?
I am remembering wrong? When Penny announced he was going to Memphis as a player, did he say something at the press conference to the effect of “the hardest part of this decision was telling Arkansas no”?
I swear I remember that, but I have really discovered in the past few years that my memory is REALLY wrong at times.
Lotta truth. Tubby’s a good coach & a great man but his coaching style doesn’t translate well to kids these days
You remember it right. In fact we all thought Penny was coming here until he announced for Memphis State.