Tubby Smith out, Penny Hardaway in? The rumor has become a mania.

The East High game had ended, the massive crowd was heading into the Memphis night, when Penny Hardaway was asked about the rumors -- rumors that he might be the head basketball coach at the University of Memphis next year.

Understand, the University of Memphis has a head basketball coach. His name is Tubby Smith, who has won a national championship and been to nine Sweet 16s, and who was hired at Memphis less than two years ago.

► More: Tubby Smith, Memphis basketball program to be evaluated after season, university President David Rudd says

But Hardaway didn’t bat the question away. He didn’t laugh it off or roll his eyes. He said, "I hear the noise, but I have to ignore it because my focus is here right now.”

It was the perfect non-answer. It was an answer that did absolutely nothing to silence that noise.

So here we are, on the verge of the American Athletic Conference tournament, and all college basketball fans in Memphis are talking about is whether Smith is on the way out and Hardaway is on the way in.

Whole radio shows are devoted to the topic. It's reminiscent of the Jon Gruden mania that once gripped Knoxville except Hardaway — unlike Gruden — would take the job in question without a moment’s hesitation.

Given a chance to quash the rumors Tuesday morning, Memphis president M. David Rudd elected not to do that, saying instead that “We’re not going to respond. We’re going to evaluate the program at the end of the year.”

That could either be Rudd deflecting the topic because a change is imminent, or it could be Rudd deflecting the topic because, well, they’re going to evaluate the program at the end of the year.

But the quote only served to ramp up the speculation. Maybe Hardaway to Memphis could be a real thing! To which the rest of the country is doubtless saying, “Memphis basketball fans are out of their minds.”

You know this is true, right? You understand how these rumors will be perceived nationally.

Why would Memphis get rid of a future Hall of Fame coach? He’s only been given two years. His team was picked to finish ninth in the conference this season and overachieved to finish fifth. Pay a guy like that $9.75 million to go away? Those Memphis people are delusional.

To which the obvious response is: Who cares what other people think? What is their investment in Memphis basketball? They likely don’t know that attendance is at a 48-year-low. They likely don’t know that Smith hasn’t been able to recruit a high school player out of Memphis since he got the job. They likely don’t know that athletic department contributions are down by $1.1 million and that the sagging attendance will cost Memphis another $800,000 under the FedExForum lease.

People criticized the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for firing Tony Dungy. The Buccaneers promptly won a Super Bowl with Gruden. They criticized the Detroit Pistons for firing Rick Carlisle. The Pistons promptly won a championship with Larry Brown. They criticized the Grizzlies for firing David Fizdale. The Grizzlies promptly, oh, wait, never mind.

But that’s the point really. The question shouldn’t be whether replacing Smith with Hardaway would be perceived favorably outside Memphis. The question should only be whether it would make sense.

To answer that, I’d need to talk to Hardaway, to get some answers to some questions. How many of Hardaway’s current players at East High School would follow him to Memphis? What would be his broader recruiting plan? Who would he hire as assistants? Could he embrace the attention and the media? Does he understand all the nonsense that goes along with a college basketball job? Does he want to sign up for that kind of highly public grind?

If the answers to those questions were encouraging, yes, I’d consider making a change.

Some of you might say that’s not fair to Smith. I get that, I really do. But is it fair to continue with a coach once you’ve concluded he can’t do the job? By that, I don’t mean just the job on the court, necessarily. I mean everything else that’s involved. Filling a building. Generating contributions. Recruiting at a high level. Representing the university with enthusiasm. Larry Finch was fired at Memphis less than a year after going to the NCAA Tournament. And he’s the most important person in the history of the program. Smith himself was fired at Minnesota the same year he took the team to the NCAA Tournament and actually won a game.

Coaching at this level involves more than coaching at this level. Smith’s inability to understand that is why he is headed to the conference tournament with no guarantee that he will coach beyond that.

In the meantime, Hardaway will be taking his East High team to the state playoffs, where it will be the overwhelming favorite to win the championship. East crushed Cordova the other night, 72-41. Afterward, Hardaway posed for a picture with East’s Alex Lomax and Cordova’s Tyler Harris. Those are the two guards Smith tried to recruit to Memphis. Those are the two guards who appear to be headed somewhere else. And there they were, on either side of Hardaway, a pointed reminder of what might have been — and what many dream might yet be.