Memphis basketball mailbag: Dealing with the local media, next year's outlook and more

Welcome back to the Memphis basketball mailbag. We haven't done one of these since the season ended in March and a lot happened since then. So I'm not surprised by the volume (and bluntness) of some questions that came in. Frankly, I couldn't answer many of them.

But in this edition, we'll address how a program's local media access can influence its overall perception, the Tigers' open staff position, as well as the roster and expectations for next year's team. As always, feel free to send me questions at any time to mark.giannotto@commercialappeal.com.

Let's get to the mailbag!

This was my favorite question of the week (and includes a second part down below). It’s also a complicated topic to address. But to put it simply: When a coach gives the local media access, particularly the most influential members of the media in a given market, they have a much better chance of controlling the narrative and perception surrounding their program. When the media doesn’t get access to a team or program, reporters aren’t able to tell the full story.

Take this offseason here in Memphis, when six players transferred from the men’s basketball team. That part of the story dominated the headlines for days because the university’s reaction was to only release a couple benign statements during the week after the Lawsons announced their departure. Reporters couldn't write/talk about anything other than that even if they wanted to. School President David Rudd has since admitted this was the wrong public relations strategy.

In retrospect, Memphis should have flooded the local media outlets with its view on the situation, to the point of being repetitive and boring. If Tubby Smith and Bowen had immediately been out there in public giving an optimistic view of the program’s future -- and I’m talking about any outlet willing to give them air time or interview them -- it likely would have shortened the negative news cycle the program endured.

“Playing up” or giving access to the media can also introduce new storylines that change the perception of a program. Frankly, all the best stories I’ve written here in Memphis and throughout my decade as a professional journalist directly correlate to the amount of access I’ve been given.

For instance, I would love to write about the three men’s basketball players that did decide to return to Memphis this offseason and I sense many fans would like to hear from them as well. The Commercial Appeal requested interviews with Jeremiah Martin, Jimario Rivers and Karim Sameh Azab a month ago, but for whatever reason Memphis won’t allow them to speak with me yet. Until I’m given the chance to interview them, I can’t write those stories.  

To be fair to the university, this market is just different than most around the country. In most places, college basketball is on the periphery of the media landscape until football season ends. In Washington, D.C., where I last worked, the University of Maryland wasn’t giving regular access to its players during the offseason. I’m sure it was the same way at Smith’s most recent coaching stops at Minnesota and Texas Tech. Keep in mind, also, that winning often solves a lot of these access issues because the school can more easily promote a positive narrative.

At Memphis, however, men’s basketball is a story all year long for the fans and the media. There’s a hunger for anything Tiger basketball-related. Smith and the university should be doing a better job addressing that fact going forward, if only because the school’s football team has provided a template of the right way to handle local media obligations and get a message out.

The second part of this question mentioned a tweet by my colleague, Geoff Calkins, about football Coach Mike Norvell getting “it” because he had Commercial Appeal beat writer Tom Schad and national CBS columnist/local radio host Gary Parrish as guest coaches during the Memphis football spring game. This was a perfect example of a coach using the local media to help shape the “perception” of his program.

Since Schad was a guest coach during the spring game, he then wrote a big centerpiece story in The Commercial Appeal detailing his experience calling plays and offering readers a glimpse into the inner workings of the program. It gave fans a better appreciation of what’s taking place on the sidelines. Norvell has done this several times with Schad, giving him inside access to different aspects of the program. Schad has subsequently produced award-winning material that shed light on why Norvell and Memphis have enjoyed a football renaissance in recent years. As I noted earlier: The better the access, the better the story.

With Parrish as a guest coach, Norvell gave himself more air time on the highest-rated sports talk radio show in the market. My guess is Parrish wouldn’t have been talking much about Memphis football during the days prior to the spring game, nor would he have talked much about it after the fact, if he weren’t a guest coach. But since Parrish was a guest coach, he conducted an interview with Norvell before the game, talked about what plays he planned to call in the lead-up to the spring game, tweeted about it to his 150,000+ followers on social media and then discussed what the experience was like the next week.

Essentially, Norvell’s idea gave the Tigers’ football program a week of positive press simply because he reached out and included the local media in a unique way. He seems to understand how “it” can benefit a program better than most coaches I’ve been around.

Some variation of this question was the most popular mailbag topic this week, so let's address it head on. Talking to people within the men’s basketball program, I do not think a hire is imminent. Though Tubby Smith has spoken with several people interested in the director of player development position vacated by Keelon Lawson, I’m under the impression that no formal interviews have been conducted yet at this time.

As Smith said in an exclusive interview with The Commercial Appeal last month, he’s debating changing the job title into a recruiting coordinator position. But ultimately, I think whoever is hired will have a minimal impact on how well the program does on the recruiting trail in the immediate future. Remember, this was a position created last year in order to make room for Lawson. And if it does indeed revolve around recruiting going forward, Smith’s options are limited.

According to NCAA rules, an institution can’t employ an individual associated with a prospect during a two-year period before a prospective student-athlete’s anticipated enrollment and a two-year period after the prospective student-athlete’s actual enrollment. Essentially, that eliminates any coach with ties to an AAU or high school program that features players Memphis could potentially recruit in the coming years. Only a loophole to the rule allowed Lawson to be moved to a non-coaching role last season because he had spent the previous two years as an assistant coach at Memphis.

So to sum it up, whoever Smith decides to hire -- my expectation is he’ll consider candidates with local ties or with ties to his past -- I just don’t see that person having a big impact on the overall direction of the program.

Yes, Memphis is looking to add at least one more player to the roster for next year and preferably a back up point guard that can shoot from outside. Though it may seem late to do that, keep this recent tweet from Scout’s Evan Daniels in mind:

Though Memphis is looking at graduate transfer options, don’t be surprised if the Tigers turn to the junior college ranks again. Currently, they have four open scholarships for the 2018 class. With all the junior college transfers coming in, they’ll have another five open scholarships for the 2019 class. My read is that Memphis would prefer to add a junior college transfer with three years of eligibility remaining in order to better spread out their recruiting classes going forward.

Whether that type of prospect, with the skill level to play at Memphis, exists is another question. I think the Tigers are in the midst of figuring that out themselves. It's why they could also get involved with a transfer that needs to sit out a year. 

The graduate transfer market is also more complicated for Memphis than at first glance with all the transfers that left the team in recent years and how that could potentially affect the program’s academic progress rate going forward. If a graduate transfer comes to a school and then doesn’t get a graduate degree, it negatively affects that program’s APR. The Tigers have to take that into consideration when considering their options.

Now for the lightning round ...

A tough one since these new players have never played against Division-I competition. But I’ll say guards Jeremiah Martin and Kareem Brewton because I think they’re going to play together a lot and dominate the ball on the perimeter. However, I expect this to be a fairly balanced offensive attack with a lot of players averaging between 8 and 13 points per game.

As for where Memphis finishes in the American Athletic Conference, my prediction on last week's podcast was that the Tigers finish 16-15 overall, with a 7-11 mark in AAC play. But again, it's a guess since there are so many new players and we don't yet know how well any of them will do against top notch competition The league is simply going to be tougher this year. My guess is Wichita State, Cincinnati, SMU, Central Florida, Connecticut, Temple and Houston will all be picked ahead of Memphis in the AAC preseason poll.

Let’s go with Brewton since he’s a junior college all-American that can score and seems to be the closest thing to a finished product among this group of incoming players.

Players will be back on campus this weekend since the first summer school session begins Tuesday. Offseason workouts will start the following week.