KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee men's basketball gets ready to take on a Memphis team on Saturday that has had a very up and down season.
Their head coach Penny Hardaway has not been shy talking to reporters during the times that were not going so well.
The Tigers started off the season 5-0 before quite the tumble as they lost four straight. That's when Hardaway started lashing out at his team publicly.
The team lost to Iowa State first. Then after a loss to Georgia, he compared his team to high school players, specifically blaming veterans on the squad.
"We looked like an AAU team," he said according to 247 Sports.
The Tigers lost their third in a row to Ole Miss. Hardaway didn't hold back once again, blaming veteran players and saying he needed to play guys who cared.
"I can say this with 100 percent sureness, or 100 percent, that there is probably five players on this team that if I was playing them the way they should have been played, I strongly feel we'd be undefeated," he said.
Hardaway seemed to believe he found the solution, except in the next game they lost at home to Murray State.
"I've gone through plenty of adversity in my life," he said. "This is a low point for me besides my knee surgeries."
After that loss, Memphis somehow pulled off quite the upset. The Tiger took down sixth-ranked Alabama at home by 14 points. The team now feels pretty confident going into this game against Tennessee.
"They've been playing exceptionally well all year," he said about Tennessee. "They're guard-heavy kind of like Alabama. They do really well. We were in a slump, got out of a slump in a major way so it makes the game more interesting on Saturday.
The 18th ranked Vols, with an 8-2 overall record, take on Memphis at noon at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The game will be broadcasted on ESPN2.