One week into the 2026-27 season, few teams in college basketball can match what Memphis has done. The Tigers are 2-0 under coach Penny Hardaway, who began his ninth season at his alma mater facing serious questions about his future, and they checked in at No. 26 in the updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily rankings on Sunday morning.
Hardaway has long insisted on scheduling aggressively outside his league, which currently ranks ninth nationally according to KenPom.com, in hopes of annually building an at-large resume for the NCAA Tournament. The strategy failed badly last season, when Memphis dropped seven of its first 11 non-league games on the way to the program's worst season in 56 years, a collapse that put Hardaway atop hot seat lists entering this fall.
This time last week, KenPom projected the Tigers as underdogs in each of their first four games. Instead, Memphis opened Monday with an 80-76 neutral-court victory over No. 18 Iowa State, then followed it Saturday with an 89-88 win at FedExForum over VCU, a team picked to win the Atlantic 10 and ranked 57th at KenPom.
It is still early, and scheduling motivations vary across the sport. Even so, in this moment Memphis stands alone as the only team in Division I men's basketball with a victory over an opponent ranked in the AP poll and another victory over an opponent ranked in the top 60 at KenPom.
Jayden Reid, a transfer from Northwestern, powered the second win. He scored 32 points against VCU, sank 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 so thankful," an emotional Reid said after the victory. "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."
The strong start carries extra weight given Hardaway's standing in Memphis. He is the program's most celebrated alum, a player whose stardom in his hometown predated the Grizzlies' arrival as an NBA franchise, and someone viewed as a likely Naismith Memorial Hall of Famer before injuries cut his career short. His eight seasons as coach, however, have produced just one conference championship, four finishes of fifth place or lower in the American, three NCAA Tournament appearances and a single tournament victory.
This is undeniably a make-or-break year for Hardaway, and there is still a long way to go. But one week in, a case can be made that no team in the country is off to a better start, all things considered.
Up next is the Tigers' biggest test yet. Memphis will play Vanderbilt inside Memorial Gym on Tuesday against a Commodores team that is also 2-0 and ranked 24th in the Top 25 And 1. The computers again favor Memphis's opponent, but the computers also had the Tigers starting 0-4 just a week ago. Memphis is 2-0, and a start like this could reconnect the city with the coach and program that once held its heart.
