On March 14, Colby Rogers drilled the biggest shot of the game, a three-pointer to put Wichita State up 62-58 with two minutes left to go against Memphis in the AAC tournament second round. Exactly one month to the day of that debacle in Fort Worth, the player who ended the 2023-2024 Memphis basketball season announced he will be a member of the 2024-2025 Memphis Tigers team, choosing them over offers from Alabama, Michigan and Kansas.
The 6' 4 guard averaged 16.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.0 steals, ascending as the best player on a bad Wichita State team in their first year of the Paul Mills era.
Rogers has moved around quite a bit in college. He started his career at Cal Poly for two seasons, then played a season at Siena before spending last year at Wichita State. He will be a fifth-year senior and will have no remaining eligibility after this year.
The biggest reason to be excited about this addition is that he adds something that, outside of David Jones, was sorely missing last year: shooting.
Rogers made 99 three-pointers last season, the 31st most in NCAA Division I, while shooting 40.9% from three, good for the 25th-best clip in the nation. At such a high volume and such an efficient rate, Rogers was one of the best three-point shooters in the country last season.
In the three games Rogers played against Memphis last year, he averaged 17.3 points on 48% shooting from three, making an average of four three-pointers per game against Memphis. One of Memphis' biggest flaws last season was three-point defense, and Rogers clearly had no problem taking advantage of that.
With this commitment, Penny Hardaway's roster is starting to take shape a little more. Two other transfer portal players, Tulsa point guard PJ Haggerty and Illinois big man Dain Dainja have already committed. This is in addition to returning forward Nicholas Jourdain, incoming top-100 freshman Jarred Harris, and potentially AAC first-teamer David Jones.
Penny is not slowing down either, as defensive stalwart Aaron Scott, a wing from North Texas, visited this weekend. Arturo Dean, an FIU transfer who led the nation in steals, and John Buggs III, another North Texas transfer who shot 45% from three last season, are also reportedly set to visit this coming week.
The NCAA transfer portal closes on May 1 for entrants, but commitments can take place after that date. What has already been a busy month for the Tigers is almost assuredly going to get busier as the picture of the 2024-2025 roster starts to become clearer.
