Memphis Tigers

Team History

Sadly for their fans and university, much of the Memphis Tigers’ success has later been vacated. While they have never won the NCAA tournament, they have had a lot of success. Memphis has made the Final Four three times: in 1973, 1985, and 2008. These three Final Four appearances became two National Championship appearances, both of which ended in losses. The 1973 national runners-up were led by Larry Finch and Ronnie Robinson. The path to the National Championship was fairly easy that year before Memphis (Then Memphis State) ran into the John Wooden buzz-saw. Continue fort more Memphis Tigers Stats.

They lost to the Bruins badly in that Championship. In 1985, the Tigers made the Final Four again, only to lose to Villanova (That appearance was vacated, along with five other tournament appearances, due to coach Dana Kirk’s NCAA violations). Also, The Derrick Rose-led Tigers made the memorable 2008 championship game, where they lost to Kansas due to a last-second prayer by Mario Chalmers falling. That appearance was also vacated due to Derrick Rose playing while ineligible. The most recent actual championship won by Memphis was the 2021 NIT, where they beat Mississippi State.

Past Championships

Memphis has won four fairly recent conference tournament championships. In 2009, the Tyreke Evans-led tigers won the Conference USA tournament, dominating the competition. They ended that tournament with a blowout victory over Tulsa. The 2011 tournament was not such a walk in the park, with the tigers barely holding on for a 67-66 win over UTEP.

The tournament MVP that year was another tiger, Joe Jackson. Jackson led them to another tournament victory in 2012, capped off by a 26 point blowout of Marshall. Their third straight tournament victory followed in 2013, where they were led by Chris Crawford. None of these materialized into NCAA tournament success, however, and Memphis has not won their conference tournament since they entered the American Athletic Conference after the 2013 season.

Important Team Events

One important event in the history of Memphis Tigers basketball was the building of the Memorial Gym in 1929. Before that, they played on multiple surfaces, including high school gyms. Memorial gym originally cost $100,000. Back then, U of M was called West Tennessee State Normal School.

The next stadium for Memphis basketball was the Mid-South Coliseum, built-in 1963. The Tigers played there for 28 years until moving again. This move was to the Pyramid in the 90s. Memphis shared this with the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies until they moved to the FedEx Forum in 2004. Both teams now share that arena.

Top Players

The most successful college player to play at Memphis would have to be Elliot Perry. He eclipsed 2000 points and is on the leaderboard in several other stats as well. In other words, he held the program together from 1987-91 as the point guard.

Penny Hardaway is one of the most well-known players to ever attend Memphis. In two years, he scored over 1300 points, averaging just at 20 per game. He also averaged 7.7 assists and 5.9 rebounds per game throughout his two-year career. Hardaway is more remembered for his NBA career, where he starred alongside Shaquille O’Neal on the Orlando Magic (Before his career was derailed by injury).

Although he was ineligible, Derrick Rose would also have to make this list. In the 2007-08 season, Rose helped put Memphis back into the national spotlight. They cruised through the regular season as the number one team in the nation and had the championship game all but won. However, Rose and the tigers folded to Kansas in the final seconds.

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