College basketball rankings: Memphis a surprising 2-0 after Penny Hardaway started season on hot seat

Penny Hardaway has made it clear in his time as coach at Memphis that he wants to schedule in a way that gives his program a chance to annually build an at-large resume for the NCAA Tournament despite playing in a conference that currently ranks ninth nationally, according to KenPom.com.

The approach hasn't always gone well.

Last season, for instance, it went horribly wrong as his Tigers lost seven of their first 11 non-league games en route to what ended up being the program's worst season in 56 years. Things got so bad Hardaway became the face of the hot seat list heading into his ninth year at his alma mater, and yet he still once again assembled a non-league schedule so tough that, this time last week, KenPom was projecting the Tigers as underdogs in each of their first four games.

But Memphis is 2-0.

Somehow, someway, Memphis is 2-0.

We are now seven full days into the 2026-27 season, and you can reasonably argue nobody had a better first week than Hardaway's Tigers. They opened Monday with an 80-76 neutral-court win over No. 18 Iowa State, then backed that upset Saturday with an 89-88 victory at FedExForum over a VCU team that's picked to win the Atlantic 10 and ranked 57th at KenPom.

It's still early, sure. And everybody schedules with different motivations, obviously. That acknowledged, what you're about to read is true: in this moment, Memphis is the only team in Division I men's basketball with A) a victory over an opponent ranked in the AP poll, and B) another victory over another opponent ranked in the top 60 at KenPom.

"I'm just so thankful," said an emotional Jayden Reid, the transfer from Northwestern who scored 32 points against VCU, buried the game-winning free throws in the final seconds, and is now averaging 29.0 points, 4.0 assists and 2.5 steals for the undefeated Tigers. "I'm just thankful, man. ... I'm just thankful for God. He put me in a great position, coming to Memphis out the portal. I'm so thankful for my coaches, my teammates. It's a big-time win at home."

To understand how big this start is for Hardaway, you have to understand how rough things have gotten for him. He's the program's greatest alum, everybody's favorite Memphis graduate and someone who would've been a Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame player if injuries had not robbed him of his abilities too early. Before the city had the Grizzlies as an NBA franchise, Penny was the city's NBA franchise.

He matters that much to his hometown.

So, yeah, it's been a tough go over the past eight years that have featured just one conference championship to go with four fifth-place-or-lower finishes in the American. The Tigers have only made three NCAA Tournament appearances under Hardaway and won just one game in that postseason event. There have been more top-ranked recruiting classes than wins in the bracket. There have been more NCAA investigations than wins in the bracket.

Every bit of this is depressing to type -- first and foremost as a Memphis alum, but also as a columnist/analyst who very publicly suggested Hardaway should be the person to replace Tubby Smith back in 2018. Things have not gone smoothly -- or the way I hoped they'd go, or the way I anticipated them going. Put DraftKings on it, and, if we're being honest, Hardaway would've been considered an underdog, just a week ago, to still be the Memphis coach on April 1, 2027.

This is a make-or-break year, undeniably.

And who knows where it's headed, still? Long way to go and all that. But, one week in, you can make the case, all things considered, that no team in the country is off to a better start than Memphis, which is No. 26 in Sunday morning's updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings.

Up next for the Tigers is another big test -- more specifically, their biggest test of the season to date. Memphis will play Vanderbilt inside Memorial Gym on Tuesday. The Commodores are 2-0 and ranked 24th in the Top 25 And 1.

Is a 3-0 start on tap for Memphis?

According to the computers, no. But, don't forget, just a week ago, the computers had Memphis starting 0-4. Now Memphis is 2-0. So it's possible the computers just don't have a great grasp for these Tigers quite yet, which is both understandable and also the thing that could reconnect the city to the coach and program that once had its heart.

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