The Memphis Tigers men’s basketball team represents the University of Memphis in NCAA Division I men’s college basketball. The Tigers have competed at the American Athletic Conference because 2013. As of 2011, the Tigers had the 29th highest winning percentage in NCAA history. They play home games. ESPN Stats and Information Department ranked Memphis since the 19th most prosperous basketball program from 1962 to 2012 in their yearly 50 in 50 list.
On April 7, 2009, Josh Pastner was appointed the head coach of the team. Pastner was hired as an assistant at Memphis in 2008 after serving as an assistant coach under Lute Olson at Arizona for six decades. Pastner acquired a reputation as a recruiter. In his first year as coach at Memphis, Pastner brought in Elliot Williams, a transfer from Duke, who led the team in scoring and has been drafted to the NBA. Williams was allowed to play with his first time after departing Calipari took him Memphis’ top-ranked recruitment class. In 2011 Pastner directed the Tigers back into the NCAA championship for the first time in his coaching profession, even though they lost in the first round into his former group, Arizona.
Throughout the 2011–12 year, the Tigers announced they were leaving Conference USA to join the Big East Conference beginning in 2013 (later renamed the American Athletic Conference). They began the season strong, moving as high to No. 13 in the country before falling out of the ranks (a phenomenon that would become a recurrent motif of the Pastner age ). In the last game of the season, Josh Pastner’s victory over Tulsa gave him 72 career victories, the most by a Memphis head coach over his first three seasons. Memphis created its second straight NCAA Championship after winning the Conference USA championship. An 8-seed, the Tigers lost in the first round to 9-seeded Saint Louis. Following the season, sophomore star Will Barton left for the NBA.
In 2012–13, the Tigers, led by CUSA participant of the year Joe Jackson, won the Conference USA regular season and tournament titles in their final year in CUSA. [18] The Tigers began competition from the then newly formed American Athletic Conference in 2013. AAC contest was not as kind to the Pastner-led Tigers, as they made an NCAA tournament berth in only 1 of the group’s first 3 seasons in the AAC.
On April 8, 2016, facing mounting criticism in Memphis, Pastner took the task of head men’s basketball coach at Georgia Tech. [19] A couple of days later, the Tigers hired Tubby Smith to take over the head coaching job. [20] Smith had only won the Big 12 coach of the year award in addition to some national training awards because of his year at Texas Tech.
Smith was fired March 14, 2018, after failing to reach the NCAA Tournament in both of his two years as head trainer. Penny Hardaway was verified as Smith’s replacement
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