HARTFORD, Conn. – The Memphis basketball team’s NCAA tournament chances disintegrated beneath the force of a hammer dunk.

UConn freshman guard James Bouknight sprinted ahead on a fast break on Sunday afternoon, corralled a laser pass from Christian Vital and imprinted Memphis freshman Precious Achiuwa on a poster. Bouknight drew a foul to add insult to infamy.

The moment rose above a rock fight of questionable aesthetics, as the dunk boosted UConn’s lead to five points with just over three minutes remaining and allowed the Huskies to grind out a 64-61 victory. The loss ostracized Memphis to the remote fringes of the NCAA tournament conversation, many hemispheres from a season that began with bold talk by Penny Hardaway about winning a national championship.

This Memphis season is instead wheezing to an end, with the Tigers (17-8) falling to 6-6 in American Athletic Conference play after their third straight loss. The national title visions that Hardaway so audaciously declared this fall have descended to whispers of NIT seeding. The chatter about a new generation’s Fab Five-caliber recruiting class has crumbled to excuses of too much youth.

“We got to win out, to me,” Hardaway said when asked about what was necessitated to get back into the NCAA tournament conversation. “I wouldn’t say win out. We got to win some big games. I wouldn’t put that much pressure on the young guys. But we have to win some impressionable games.”

If that comment on Sunday evening elicits a chuckle from some veteran coaches around college basketball, don’t be surprised. Hardaway worrying about placing pressure on his team is a far cry from what he told The Athletic this fall: “We’re going to win a national championship.”

Instead, Memphis will be remembered as the biggest disappointment of the 2019-20 college basketball season, a tease of talent undercut by attrition, injury and the same youth that gave oxygen to Hardaway’s preseason chutzpah.

Yes, it must be acknowledged that that two of Memphis’ best players are missing. James Wiseman, the 7-foot-1 prodigy and likely No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, decided working out was better for his professional future than playing for Memphis. D.J. Jeffries, a 6-foot-7 forward and one of the core pieces of this ballyhooed Memphis recruiting class, is out for the next two-to-four weeks with a knee injury that makes him unlikely to return in the regular season.

“Obviously we had national championship dreams earlier, and that wasn’t far-fetched,” Hardaway said. “Especially the way that college basketball is happening this year with so many teams going up and down. But when you lose the No. 1 pick, or the No. 1 player in the country, then you have to regroup.”

So as Hardaway is trending toward finishing his second season at Memphis without an NCAA bid, it raises an interesting referendum on his actual coaching. His ability to win the offseason is without peer, as he did it with both his hire in 2018 and by luring the No. 1 Rivals.com class in 2019. In terms of fan support, relevancy and pure talent, Memphis is light years ahead of where they were under Tubby Smith.

View photos Head coach Anfernee Hardaway of the Memphis Tigers talks to Tyler Harris #1 after a timeout during a game against Cincinnati on Feb. 13. (Joe Robbins/Getty Images) More

But what do we really know about Hardaway as a coach? So far, those around the AAC have complemented how hard his teams have played. There were some inspired X’s-and-O’s moments out of set situations on Sunday, creating easy baskets out of dead balls. But there’s also been that garish 40-point loss at Tulsa, a spree of losses in close games and a general feeling that the Memphis sum – even without Wiseman – doesn’t match the Memphis talent.

The most fair criticism of Hardaway – and Memphis as an entire university – was the careless risk of seeking a court injunction to play Wiseman in a meaningless game against overmatched UIC in November. While the moment played out to public cheers as it showed defiance toward the NCAA, the reality was that it was a foolish risk. And while the blame for that should go to Memphis president M. David Rudd, Hardaway also could have stepped back and taken a longer look at the big picture.

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