Twenty points down against Alabama, Memphis could have settled into a familiar kind of explanation. New coach. New system. Give it time. There would have been truth in all of it. Hana Haden was coaching her fourth game at Memphis, not her fourth season. Building something takes longer than a few November nights.
Her players apparently had something else in mind. The Tigers came back to win 75–70 Thursday, moving to 4–0 for the first time since 2004–05. They beat Alabama for the first time since 1999–2000 and an SEC opponent for the first time since 2017–18.
That is a lot of history to drag into one postgame conversation. It is also a reason to look closely at what happened, rather than rush to declare the rebuilding finished.
This Was More Than a Better Ending
Comebacks tend to get reduced to emotion. Somebody refused to quit. The crowd got loud. A team found a little extra. All of that can be part of an afternoon. It does not explain the basketball by itself. Alabama scored 28 points in the opening quarter. Memphis held the Crimson Tide to 22 across the next two combined while scoring 49. Alabama went eight minutes and 30 seconds without a field goal during the second quarter.
That is where the game changed. A team that had been getting beaten suddenly started making the opponent uncomfortable. The final margin was five. The shift required to get there was considerably larger. Memphis forced 26 turnovers and turned them into 36 points. You can call that resilience. You should also call it production. For a first-year coach, there is value in players discovering that the things being asked of them can change a game that appears to be slipping away.
The Starting Point Matters
Haden did not inherit a program that needed a fresh coat of paint. Alex Simmons went 30–61 overall and 18–36 in conference play across three seasons. Memphis announced a coaching change March 9 and hired Haden March 26. Those numbers belong in the story. Leaving them out would make the current start harder to understand.
They should not become an excuse to assign motives, invent locker-room problems or turn the previous staff into a convenient villain. The record explains why Memphis wanted a different direction. It does not explain every person involved. Haden arrived after a 23–8 season and Sun Belt regular-season championship at Georgia Southern.
That gave Memphis a résumé to introduce. The Alabama game gave supporters something they could watch and evaluate for themselves. There is an important difference between being told a coach can build a winner and seeing her team find its footing when losing would have been easy to explain.
Don’t Write the Players Out
Coaching changes naturally put the new coach at the center of everything. Thursday belonged to more people than that. Tamya Smith scored 17. Ainaya Williams and Tierney Kelsey added 13 each. Daejah Richmond had 11 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and five steals. Richmond and Smith were already part of the program. So was Jordan Hunter.
That matters because a turnaround is not always about replacing everyone. Sometimes it involves returning players finding a different way forward, too. Four games cannot tell us where this season ends. The schedule will get longer.
Opponents will adjust. Memphis will have nights when the comeback does not arrive. What this start has done is give the program something solid to build upon—and give its players proof that they can respond together. The Tigers had been waiting more than two decades to open a season this way. They do not have to pretend the work is finished to appreciate that the wait is over.
