Memphis basketball joined the upper echelon of national rankings Monday.
The Tigers (8-2) moved into the Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first time this season and moved back into the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. Penny Hardaway’s team is ranked No. 23 in both polls.
The surges come immediately after Memphis outlasted Clemson (previously No. 11, now 18th) Saturday at FedExForum, 79-77. The Tigers have won three straight and now boast five wins this season against Power Fiver teams.
The highest the Tigers appeared on any AP voter’s ballot was 13th (Seth Davis), according to collegepolltracker.com. Twenty-four AP voters put Memphis inside the top 20 on their ballots, but 13 AP voters kept Memphis unranked this week.
Memphis was ranked 23rd in the coaches poll the week of Nov. 20. But back-to-back losses to Villanova and Ole Miss dropped the Tigers out. Hardaway’s squad, despite a road win over Missouri and neutral-site wins over Michigan and Arkansas on back-to-back nights, spent three straight weeks stuck at what amounts to No. 26 in the AP poll.
The Tigers came into the 2023-24 season unranked, receiving only a few votes in each poll in October. The last time Memphis entered the AP poll in the regular season after having been unranked in the preseason was the 2003-04 season.
David Jones leads the Tigers in scoring (20.3 points) and rebounding (6.5).
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Memphis is set to face its third straight ranked opponent Tuesday (6 p.m., ESPN2) when 22nd-ranked Virginia ventures inside FedExForum. It will be the first time since March 8, 2014 (versus SMU), that a ranked Memphis team has faced a ranked opponent at FedExForum.
Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or follow him @munzly on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.