Penny Hardaway will return to Memphis next season as the basketball coach, sources told ESPN.
After a series of meetings with the Memphis administration, Hardaway presented a plan for next season, which will be his ninth at the school. According to sources, his return for 2026-27 will include changes to the coaching staff and the hiring of a general manager.
Hardaway expressed his desire to turn the program around after a 13-19 season, which included a late slump in which the Tigers lost seven straight games before winning the regular-season finale at Tulane.
Memphis then lost to Tulane in the first round of the American Conference Tournament. It was the program’s first losing season since 1999-2000 under Johnny Jones, the year before John Calipari arrived at the school.
It marked Hardaway’s first losing season in his eight years at Memphis, which included a 175-87 record.
He has one NCAA Tournament win in those three seasons. Memphis earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAAs last year before falling to No. 12 Colorado State in the first round.
Hardaway’s future in the slump this season appears to be a vexing decision for Memphis, as Hardaway ranks high among the school’s most famous graduates and is an icon in the city. He also reached the NCAA Tournament three of the previous four years.
Hardaway has two years left on his contract, which runs through April 2028. His buyout was about $6 million when he left this year.
After the loss in the American Conference Tournament, Hardaway called it “a failed season”.
“It was definitely a failure,” Hardaway said. “You can’t categorize it anywhere else, any other way. We didn’t do what we needed to do. We failed.
“But, again, you can bounce back from failure. There’s a lot of teams that have been through more than that and I’m at the head of that failure. Couldn’t really trust the guys every single game. We worked hard, we put guys in position, and then guys have to go in there and take over from there because we can’t get on the court.”
