Memphis vs. Tennessee rivalry history: A timeline of hate

With final exams happening and then students subsequently heading home for the holidays, it isn’t hard to understand why December is the most quiet month on the college basketball calendar. What the period of time between Feast Week and the start of conference play does give us is some of the sport’s best out-of-conference rivalry games.

One of the most anticipated tilts from this group of scorching animosity is Saturday’s matchup between Memphis and Tennessee in Knoxville. The fact that these are two top 20 teams with legitimate chances to win their respective conferences and do damage in the NCAA tournament is only a sidenote here. The primary draw for the Tigers vs. the Volunteers is the nearly unmatched vitriol between the two programs that has been exacerbated exponentially over the past year.

Before you can fully embrace the madness that is going to be Saturday afternoon’s game inside Thompson-Boling Arena, you need a full understanding of how we got to this point.

March 28, 2018

Tennessee and Memphis agree to a three-year deal that will feature a game in Memphis in 2018, a game in Knoxville in 2019, and a neutral court clash in Nashville in 2020. It’ll mark the first time since Jan. 4, 2013 that the two Volunteer State powers will meet on the hardwood.

At the time, the contract is celebrated by Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes, who had been wanting to revive the series for some time.

“It’s something we’ve been working on with (former Memphis coach) Tubby Smith since we’ve gotten here,” Barnes said. “I think the way the contract sets up, we go there first, they come here, then I think we have a meeting in Nashville. Even though we like the home and home, we’d like to make it a big day of basketball in Nashville. Not just us, but bring in other teams within the state and just make it a day to really promote basketball. That’s the reason we’re going there that third year.

“I’d like to have some kind of jamboree or extravaganza, something that will really promote basketball in the state of Tennessee.”

Dec. 15, 2018

Game one of the new series between Tennessee, once-beaten and ranked No. 3 at the time, and Memphis goes down inside the FedExForum.

Before we get into anything that actually happened on the court and how the end of the game set the stage for the war of words that would come in the month to follow, we have to first address the most important occurrence in the Memphis-Tennessee rivalry to date: In the middle of the game, a man was arrested for taking a shit behind a concession stand on the concourse of the FedEx Forum. When he was confronted and eventually arrested, he gave the only explanation he could.

A security guard was making her way from a stairwell and saw the man, later identified as 46-year-old Royce Thomos Lodholz, squatting behind a concession stand. She went over to Lodholz and found that he had his pants off his body, exposing himself to several people walking nearby, and was defecating on the floor.

The security guard called for her partner, who saw the same thing.

Lodholz told police officers that people in the restrooms were taking too long to clear out, so “he had to do what he had to do,” according to a police affidavit.

We’re not even into the real juicy stuff and you can already see why this rivalry must be protected at all costs.

As for the game itself, Tennessee controls a high-scoring affair from virtually start to finish, and owns a 102-92 advantage when the final buzzer sounds. What’s more important, at least for our purposes, is what happens with about 47 seconds left.

After a meaningless Memphis basket, Tennessee’s Jordan Bone and the Tigers’ Alex Lomax start doing a little bit of talking. The players are quickly separated and hit with double technicals. UT players help escort Bone back to the Volunteers bench without any further issue. The whole thing seems like a forgettable moment to cap off a fairly forgettable rivalry game.

You can see for yourself here:

After the game, Bone served up his side of the seemingly innocuous back-and-forth.

“I heard (Lomax) say something and I retaliated,” Bone said. “I shouldn’t have. We were winning the game. We were supposed to walk out of here with class. I kind of allowed them to get to me because I know a couple of those guys, I played AAU with them back in the day. So I kind of lost my focus. But I got back level-headed and we walked out of here the way we were supposed to.”

The other reason Bone was frustrated at the end of the game? In his eyes, Memphis players were being rewarded for flopping throughout the game.

“It was definitely frustrating,” Bone said. “We have a rule. When you have two fouls you have to sit down, especially in the first half. It was frustrating knowing I had to sit down on the bench. That was the scouting report. We knew they were going to come out and flop and that’s what they did. The calls went their way early in the game.”

There is some video evidence to back up Bone’s belief.

When Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway was asked after the game about the kerfuffle between Bone and Lomax, he painted a very different picture than Bone and the video did.

“Alex is a kid that’s not gonna talk trash, so obviously Jordan Bone said something to his disrespectfully,” Hardaway said. “He said something back to him to protect himself. Then (Memphis player Jeremiah Martin) jumped in and said something to Jordan Bone and he got a technical.

“The entire Tennessee team ran over to fight. Their entire team emptied the bench to come over. They weren’t coming over because it was a timeout. You could visibly see guys with their fists balled, talking trash to our guys. It was almost like a standoff.”

Those comments would instantly become the source of much scrutiny.

Dec. 17, 2018

Two days after Tennessee’s 10-point triumph over Memphis, Rick Barnes held his weekly coaches radio show and seemed to echo Bone’s comments about Tiger players being rewarded for flopping early in the game.

“It was a very difficult game to call when guys are trying to pick up fouls and every time there’s contact jumping back and this and that,” Barnes said.

Barnes also took a moment to make light of Hardaway’s assertion that his players ran over to the Memphis bench with their “fists balled” looking for a fight.

“Here’s what I want to ask, too,” Barnes said to Kesling during the show on Sports Radio WNML in Knoxville, “at any Saturday did you ball your fist up and get ready to fight the other commentator?”

Kesling did his part to laugh off the light-hearted response from Barnes.

“If he would’ve taken about three steps toward me,” Kesling responded, “(Dave) Woloshin and I would’ve thrown down.”

“Who would win that?” Barnes asked.

“I’ve got the size on him,” Kesling responded. “I could take him. I could take Woloshin.”

“Yeah, but it would take you 10 minutes to get up from behind the table,” Barnes jabbed back.

Barnes added later that he didn’t “think anybody did anything that was overly aggressive.”

“I will say this, no one showed me any tape where any of our guys had their fists balled up,” he said.

All of these words would quickly make their way from Knoxville to Memphis.

Dec. 18, 2018

Rick Barnes has his weekly meeting with the media and only makes one comment of note about the Memphis game, stating his displeasure with Penny Hardaway calling out Jordan Bone by name during his postgame comments.

“I didn’t like that,” Barnes said. “Obviously because I don’t think you do that, but the fact is you guys know I kid with Bob and I’ll always do that, but that game’s over with, done with. We’ve got to get on down the road. We’ve got a really tough opponent (Samford) in here (Wednesday) night and we’ve got to get ready for that.”

During his weekly meeting with the press, Hardaway had much more to say. He wasted little time getting directly into the subject of Barnes and some words that he believed to be extremely disrespectful to him and his program.

“I don’t know who Rick Barnes thinks I am, but I’m not a dude who likes to mess around about anything,” Hardaway said. “I just call it how I see it, no matter how he’s trying to make things seem. I think it’s kind of low class, how he’s trying to downgrade my guys for flopping and all that. Come on, give me a break.

“As far as flopping, that’s not something that we teach. We don’t even understand that term.”

Hardaway wasn’t finished.

“He’s blessed to have the No. 3 team in the country and he should be happy with that. And we will see each other again, for sure. He can do whatever he wants to do, but we’ll see each other out on the road somewhere or in another game.”

And then, the coup de grâce. Hardaway’s parting words as he left the press conference?

“Rick Barnes, get the fuck out of here.”

Things die down at least temporarily after this three day flurry of comments.

Jan. 16, 2019

The subject of Barnes and the Tennessee game comes up again during a Hardaway appearance with Jalen Rose on the ESPN show “Get Up.” This time, the head coach describes the game as “heated” with “high tempers and a lot of competitiveness,” but is less scorched earth with his overall response.

“You know I’ve always had respect for coach Rick Barnes,” Hardaway said. “We had a situation here in Memphis with a rivalry game, you know it’s going to be heated, you’ve had those kind of rivalry games with Michigan State before, I’m sure.

“So you know that when you get into that game it’s going to be hot tempers and, you know, a lot of competitiveness. And after the game, I don’t feel like he gave my team a fair understanding of what we were trying to do. Kind of mocking the NBA and our coaching staff and I really didn’t like that. I have the utmost respect for him, but I couldn’t let him do my team like that.”

Jan. 22, 2019

Tennessee is now the No. 1 team on the country for just the second time in program history, which means some face time for Barnes on SportsCenter. During his interview on the program, naturally, the subject of Memphis and his ever-bourgeoning rivalry with Hardaway is brought up.

Barnes isn’t interested in throwing any more fuel on the fire.

“I have unbelievable respect for Penny Hardaway,” Barnes said. “I got to meet him long before he started becoming a head coach. I’ve never mocked any team, ever. There’s nowhere out there that I’ve said one thing about Memphis basketball from an NBA standpoint or anything of that.

”I’ve got great respect for what he’s doing there and the program he’s trying to build. I’m not on record ever saying anything (negative) about Memphis basketball.”

Tennessee will eventually earn a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament and drop a heartbreaker to Purdue in the Sweet 16. Memphis will see its season end in the NIT, but Hardaway will sign the No. 1 ranked recruiting class in the country, headlined by top-ranked prospect James Wiseman.

Aug. 17, 2019

Memphis takes an exhibition tour to the Bahamas, and a mini-scuffle breaks out during one of its first games. Nothing serious actually happens in the back-and-forth, but former Tennessee star Grant Williams can’t help but make a not-so-subtle reference to Penny Hardaway’s “fists balled” comment from the year before.

Fellow graduated star Admiral Schofield then reminds everyone how that game the December before turned out.

Incoming Memphis freshman Lester Quinones — AKA, the guy with the really short shorts — doesn’t let the fact that he hasn’t even suited up for his first college game stop him from interjecting himself directly into the middle of his team’s hottest rivalry.

Schofield is currently playing for the Capital City Go-Gos, the G-League affiliate of the Washington Wizards.

Sophomore point guard Tyler Harris also joins the fun.

Sept. 25, 2019

Williams, now a member of the Boston Celtics, notices that the Memphis basketball team is now posting videos of the “one player dunks, everyone else jumps with him” thing that the Volunteers had been doing before games. He has thoughts on this.

Quinones has some thoughts on Williams’ thoughts. He doesn’t let the fact that Williams is in the NBA and he has yet to suit up for his first game keep him from sharing those thoughts.

Quinones, for what it’s worth, is currently dealing with a broken hand and is not expected to play in Saturday’s rivalry game.

Nov. 18, 2019

After initially seeming like the biggest fan of the series, Barnes now says that he “doesn’t think” that the Memphis-Tennessee series won’t be renewed after the third game is played in 2020.

“We’ll see. I think our deal — and I don’t think it’s any question it’s their situation too — you’re going to build the schedule based on where your program is and the opportunities that are out there. I’ve said before, I don’t know where it goes from here. I know this, we’re playing them now.”

Nov. 19, 2019

Hardaway is asked about his thoughts on the future of the rivalry past 2020 and states in no uncertain terms that he believes it should continue.

“I think it’d be good for the state, for sure,” said Hardaway. ”Obviously what happened last year kind of put a spoiler on it for a minute but I’m way past that right now because, I think, the state is so competitive that I think it should carry on.”

Dec. 10, 2019

The arrival of game week for the 2019 installment of Tennessee vs. Memphis is here, and both head coaches are doing their best to de-escalate the tensions that have dominated the headlines for the last 12 months.

“I think Penny Hardaway has done a great job coaching these young guys,” Barnes said of his rival. “He’s got a lot of young guys and that’s not the easiest thing to do, when you have five, six new guys. Trying to get them to understand what they have to do. And he’s done a terrific job.”

And is he looking forward to the actual game after everything that has gone down over the last year?

“I think (the players) should look forward to it,” Barnes said of Saturday’s game. “It’s two good teams that are playing each other. We’re a long way apart, six hours is a long way, but the fact is, again I’ve said it, Penny has done a terrific job with his program.

“Terrific players in his program and he’s playing with a lot of young players. They’ve played a good schedule themselves and had some good, quality wins.”

And as for Hardaway?

“Well, last year’s game was last year’s game. I’ve always had a lot of respect for Coach Barnes. I was just protecting my team last year. And it was unfortunate that it got taken out of hand last year, with what happened. They had a great team. No. 1 team in the nation. And we were fighting to try to get some respect. And it’s a rivalry game. So we’ll just leave it there. I kind of added to that last year with all the headlines. But it was really just trying to protect my team. But yes, it’s easy to go with those headlines after what happened last year.

“It’s really not me against Rick. But, honestly, it’s going to be a great game. It’s going to be chess, to be honest with you, because we don’t know how the refs are going to call it.”

Dec. 14, 2019

No. 19 Tennessee will host No. 13 Memphis at 3 p.m. on ESPN. A win for the Volunteers would give Barnes his 700th career victory.

For the first time in nearly a full year of this rivalry making headlines, all eyes will be on the court. That, of course, opens the door for some serious concourse pooping.