Memphis basketball's absurd senior day comeback, and what it means in March | Giannotto

Andy Kennedy just kept getting angrier and angrier until he lost his damn mind, and that’s probably where we should start on maybe the most absurd senior day Memphis basketball has ever experienced. Because the final score — Tigers 106, UAB 87 — does no justice to the whirling dervish of a game that played out at FedExForum Sunday afternoon.

Barely three minutes had gone by in the second half when UAB’s coach began to aggressively object to a traveling call. He was screaming at official Jeb Hartness by the time he took a few steps out on to the floor.

That’s when the first technical foul came. That’s when the fun really began.

The former Ole Miss coach charged at Hartness, spittle coming from his mouth. After thinking better of it momentarily, he doubled back. He tried to push one of his own players out of the way. He tried to push one of his assistants out of the way. And then crew chief Byron Jarrett threw him out.

You might say Kennedy got one glimpse of the best this Memphis team has to offer, and apparently decided he didn’t want to see any more. The entire arena had already come unhinged by that point, transformed into delirium by a mind-blowing surge that happened in almost the blink of an eye.

During the final home game of this topsy-turvy regular season, these confounding and captivating Tigers left Memphis with an encapsulation of their entire campaign in a little more than two hours. They gave the city reasons to dismiss their last-ditch push to earn an NCAA tournament berth that once had seemed certain, and then they gave us reasons to think this still could be coach Penny Hardaway’s first Sweet 16 team.

It just depends what version shows up.

The team that gave up a season-high 61 points in the first half, or the team that outscored UAB 60-26 in the second.

The team that shuffled through lineup after lineup searching for answers in the first half, or the team that played its starters for nearly 12 minutes in the second half before making a substitution.

The team that fell behind by 22 in the first half, or the team that rattled off 20 straight points and went on a ridiculous 46-9 surge that left everyone who watched in utter disbelief.

Memphis trailed 61-39 with 1:25 to go before halftime. It had the lead less than four minutes into the second half, once Kennedy blew a gasket. The Tigers became just the second team since 2010 to trail by more than 20 points and then go on to win by at least 15.

“I don’t know if I should be proud of that or not,” Hardaway said.

But the whiplash eventually led him back to the possibilities that felt alive again.

“That’s the greatness this team has,” Hardaway said. “The first half is who we can be as well. But the second half is the greatness that we can be.”

It’s all starting to fall in place for Memphis. Heading into Sunday, SMU and Charlotte each lost, opening the door once more for the Tigers to earn a coveted double-bye in the American Athletic Conference tournament. On Sunday morning, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi declared that a Memphis win over UAB would put it back on his bubble as one of the “next four out” teams.

It’s not where they were before this season went sideways, but it’s a whole lot better than where this enterprise seemed headed just two weeks ago, when the Tigers looked like a team ready to quit at SMU. They refused to do that Sunday, in the most spectacular of ways.

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First it was Jahvon Quinerly, scoring seven straight points to narrow the UAB lead to 15 at halftime, including a buzzer-beating heave a few steps inside the half-court line. Then, Hardaway made two crucial adjustments in the locker room. He moved David Jones to the high post to disarm the 1-3-1 and 2-3 zones UAB had been effectively employing. He also told his players to stop switching on defense, a radical decision for his trapping style.

“We didn’t come this far to lose this game,” Hardaway declared.

But once it was over, once Jones had 32 points and forward Nae’Qwan Tomlin set a career high with 28 and Quinerly finished with 25 — once they had combined to score or assist on 34 of the Tigers’ 35 field goals during this once- every-15-years experience — it was their star from the Dominican Republic who was most surprised.

During a pregame senior day ceremony that included former Memphis star De’Andre Williams walking out with Tomlin, Jones’ sister came running from the FedExForum tunnel for a long and emotional embrace at midcourt. She hadn’t told him she was coming, and “basically lied to me,” Jones said, when he tried to call her Sunday.

He cried and she cried, and he was thinking of her when that second half began.

“I didn’t want to go out like that for the last (home) game,” Jones said. “I had to put on a show for my sister.”

And so, immediately after Kennedy was escorted off the court, after these unpredictable Tigers had stormed back so swiftly and stunningly, it was Jones who went to the free-throw line and gave them a lead as unlikely as any this season.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on X: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Inside Memphis basketball's absurd senior day comeback win vs. UAB