Busting Brackets
Fansided

NCAA Basketball: Biggest winners and losers of 2019 offseason

By Brian Rauf

PORTLAND, OR - NOVEMBER 26: Head coach Dana Altman yells at Payton Pritchard (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)
PORTLAND, OR - NOVEMBER 26: Head coach Dana Altman yells at Payton Pritchard (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 8
Next
MIAMI, FL – DECEMBER 01: Head coach Penny Hardaway of the Memphis Tigers reacts against the Texas Tech Red Raiders during the HoopHall Miami Invitational at American Airlines Arena on December 1, 2018 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FL – DECEMBER 01: Head coach Penny Hardaway of the Memphis Tigers reacts against the Texas Tech Red Raiders during the HoopHall Miami Invitational at American Airlines Arena on December 1, 2018 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) /

Winner: Memphis

It’s impossible not to have Memphis as one of the offseason’s biggest winners.

They landed the nation’s best recruiting class that was headlined by five top 60 prospects, including No. 1 overall James Wiseman and fellow five-star Precious Achiuwa, both of whom are projected to be lottery picks in the 2020 NBA Draft.

The arrival of this group has done exactly what Memphis hired Hardaway to do – re-ignite a quality program that had gone stagnant over the past decade. They hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2014 and hadn’t finished higher than third since the American Athletic Conference was founded.

Fan support and national prestige has dwindled. Hardaway and this group of freshmen have already restored both, which is all you can hope to accomplish during the offseason.

The last part of The Penny Hardaway Experiment is for him to bring Memphis back to the Final Four, a place they last were in 2008. That can’t happen until the season actually gets underway but, up until this point, he has done the job he was hired to do – and the Tigers couldn’t be happier.

Home/NCAA Basketball News