Penny Hardaway understands that No. 16-ranked Memphis likely is a lock for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament that begins next week.
But Hardaway said he isn’t concerned with next week at the moment. He is obsessed with his team’s next game, which will be against Tulane in the semifinal round of the American Athletic Conference tournament Saturday afternoon in Fort Worth, Texas.
The Tigers (27-5), who have won six games in a row, are hunting for a high seed in the NCAA Tournament and hold the No. 1 seed in the AAC tourney. Tulane (19-13) is the No. 4 seed in the tournament and will try to pull off an upset to advance to Sunday’s championship game against the winner of Saturday’s semifinal between second-seeded North Texas or third-seeded UAB.
“I know we’re in,” Hardaway said of the NCAA Tournament. “But the competitive nature, you’re always hunting greatness. We’re never going to settle. … We never want to lose. We want to go into every situation winning. We want to win.”
Memphis will look to continue its momentum after holding on for an 83-80 win over eighth-seeded Wichita State on Friday afternoon. PJ Haggerty scored 42 points for Memphis, and Dain Dainja contributed 18 points on 7-for-12 shooting from the field.
Dainja said nobody on the team is surprised Haggerty is hot at this time of year.
“Special,” Dainja said of Haggerty. “Man, he’s one of the best guards in the country. I wasn’t surprised at all. I know he can take over games like this. When he gets going, we’ve just got to find him.”
Tulane will try to play the role of spoiler on Saturday. The Green Wave are coming off an 83-76 win over Florida Atlantic on Friday that helped them advance to the semifinals.
Asher Woods scored 20 points on 6-for-10 shooting to lead Tulane, and Kaleb Banks and Gregg Glenn III added 17 points apiece.
Tulane coach Ron Hunter praised his team after Friday’s victory.
“When you get to this time of year, every game is hard,” he said. “But this is a team that doesn’t have a senior. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t realize that only really two of our guys out of the 15 or 16 guys (on our roster) have ever been in a conference tournament game. So this is a lot of these guys’ first conference tournament game, and I’m so proud of them, the way they handled it.”
Now comes a tough test against Memphis.
“I’ll worry about that tonight,” Hunter said. “I even brought my old Penny Hardaway shoes. I might wear them in the game (on Saturday), just out of respect for my brother, I may wear some Penny Hardaway shoes in the game.
“Maybe that will give us a little luck. I may do that.”
