Memphis Tigers men’s basketball

The Memphis Tigers men’s basketball staff represents the University of Memphis at NCAA Division I men’s college basketball. The Tigers have competed in the Athletic Conference since 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 as the 19th most successful basketball program from 1962 to 2012 in their yearly 50 in 50 list. On April 7, 2009, Josh Pastner has been 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 years. Pastner gained a reputation throughout his tenure at Arizona as a strong recruiter. In his first year as coach at Memphis, Pastner brought in Elliot Williams, a transfer from Duke, who headed the team in scoring and was drafted to the NBA. Williams was allowed to play his first time after departing Calipari took him Memphis’ top-ranked recruitment class. In 2011 Pastner directed the Tigers back into the NCAA tournament for the first time in his coaching profession, even though they dropped in the first round into his former group, Arizona. During 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 started the season strong, moving as high to No. 13 in the country before falling out of the rankings (a phenomenon that would eventually become a recurrent theme of this Pastner age ). In the last game of the season, Josh Pastner’s victory over Tulsa gave him 72 career successes, the most by a Memphis head coach over his first three seasons. Memphis made its second straight NCAA Championship after winning the Conference USA championship. An 8-seed, the Tigers dropped in the initial round to 9-seeded Saint Louis. Following the season, sophomore celebrity Will Barton left for the NBA. In 2012–13, the Tigers, led by CUSA player of the year Joe Jackson, won the Conference USA regular season and tournament titles in their final year in CUSA. [18] The Tigers started competition from the then newly formed American Athletic Conference in 2013. AAC contest wasn’t as kind to the Pastner-led Tigers, as they earned an NCAA tournament berth in just 1 of the group’s first 3 seasons in the AAC. On April 8, 2016, facing mounting criticism in Memphis, Pastner chose the task of head men’s basketball coach at Georgia Tech. [19] A couple of days after, the Tigers hired Tubby Smith to take over the head coaching job. [20] Smith had just won the Big 12 coach of the year award in addition to some national coaching awards for his season at Texas Tech. Smith was fired March 14, 2018, after failing to achieve the NCAA Tournament in both of the two years as head coach. Penny Hardaway was confirmed as Smith’s replacement Read more: soccernewsonline.net