How are Penny Hardaway's Tigers going to look this season? 'Like Memphis basketball'

The stage is set.

Cast and crew members have taken their place. All that’s left is for the curtain to be lifted on the Tigers’ first of two dress rehearsals at FedExForum. Showtime is set for 7 p.m. Thursday against Christian Brothers. The No. 14Memphis basketball team will look unlike anything fans have seen previously.

“A complete turn,” said Lance Thomas, one of the 10 players on the Tigers’ 14-man roster who never have played a minute for Memphis. “A whole different team. Whole different mind-set. The culture is different around here.”

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But as with any exhibition game, what you see won’t necessarily be what you’re going to get when the lights and cameras are turned on for real. Coach Penny Hardaway admitted Thursday’s game and Monday's exhibition against LeMoyne-Owen are as much for tinkering with lineups, rotations and sets as they are for anything else.

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“I wouldn’t put too much stock into it,” he said Wednesday afternoon, noting he probably wouldn’t pencil in his starters until Wednesday night or, possibly, after Thursday’s shootaround. “It might be I start one group the first half and another group the second half. I don’t know.”

Hardaway, however, is sure of at least one thing, as far as how the newest incarnation of the Tigers will look compared to this time a year ago.

“It will look totally different,” he said, “because we have multiple shooters, and we have a lot of size. So we can put different dynamic groups out on the floor, which we couldn’t do last year.”

Allow guard Alex Lomax to elaborate. After all, he was part of last year’s Memphis team that finished 22-14 and reached the second round of the National Invitation Tournament in Hardaway’s first season. Among the things fans can expect to see from the Tigers against Christian Brothers (and for the foreseeable future): a faster pace of play with more excitement.

“It’s gonna be fun,” Lomax said. “It’s gonna be exciting. It’s gonna look like Memphis basketball. Memphis basketball is back.”

Two of the Tigers’ most prized additions of the offseason – James Wiseman and Boogie Ellis – have missed some practice time this month with what Hardaway said last week were minor ankle injuries. Hardaway also said his son, Jayden, a redshirt freshman guard, also had been dealing with an ankle injury. All three, however, are healthy enough to play Thursday, Hardaway said.

“Right now, everybody is available,” he said.

That might not include transfer forward Isaiah Stokes, though. Hardaway said the team is still awaiting the NCAA’s ruling on its request for a waiver.

Something else about the Memphis basketball program that could change soon is the way it approaches the preseason. The Tigers played exhibition games against Christian Brothers and LeMoyne-Owen last year, too, mostly because of what Hardaway classified as “tradition.” But he told reporters that format could soon give way to adding what is known around college basketball as a “secret scrimmage” – a game against another Division I team that is closed to the public and the media.

“I do want to have an opportunity to play against a top, major Division I (team) early, like, in a scrimmage and still have an exhibition game,” Hardaway said. “I know I changed that from last year. But seeing more of that, that’s kind of, I think, more of what I want to do.”

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Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.