Why was Penny Hardaway suspended? Probing the Memphis coach's recruiting and responsibility violations

Memphis men's basketball coach Penny Hardaway will miss the first three games of next season. The NCAA handed him a suspension for recruiting violations on Wednesday.

The former NBA star and Memphis alum was involved in two illegal in-home visits with a top prospect from Dallas in 2021.

According to the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions, Hardaway and an assistant coach visited the prospect and his family at their home in September and October of 2021.

The NCAA rules, as adopted by members, require any in-person contact with recruits during the fall months of their junior year of high school to be made at the prospects' schools, not at their homes.

The committee said that Hardaway violated head coach responsibility rules by failing to monitor his staff and notify the school's compliance department before the visits. Hardaway told investigators that he believed he "could visit any student-athlete at any time."

Hardaway said that he would not have made signed off on said visits if he knew the rules beforehand. The committee, however, believed that although this may explain the transgression, it did not excuse it.

"Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse," the committee said in its decision. "The head coach's inattentiveness to compliance — particularly at a time when his program was under scrutiny related to a different infractions case — resulted in careless violations.

"Head coaches must remain diligent in monitoring their staff and promoting compliance at all times and cannot delegate those responsibilities to compliance staff members and administrators."

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What are the consequences for Penny Hardaway and Memphis Tigers?

Head coach Penny Hardaway of the Memphis Tigers talks with the team: Florida Atlantic v Memphis

In addition to Hardaway's suspension, which will keep him out of the first three games of next season, Memphis agreed to serve a one-year probationary period extended onto its current probation (which stems from another case involving former star James Wiseman). The school will also reduce its men's basketball official visits by one during the 2022-23 academic year.

The school said in a statement that it supported Hardaway's right to work directly with the NCAA on his portion of the case, and that it strongly believed he never intentionally committed a violation.

"The University of Memphis is committed to compliance," the statement read. "We will learn from this incident and be even more diligent in our education and monitoring. Now that the entirety of this case is finalized, we will move forward in support of Coach Penny Hardaway and our men's basketball program, as we do all our programs."

Penny Hardaway, who played 14 seasons in the NBA, has led the Tigers to five consecutive 20-win seasons (110-52 overall), the 2021 NIT title, the 2023 American Athletic Conference tournament championship and two straight trips to the NCAA tournament.