Memphis head coach Penny Hardaway sends a shot across the bow of the Tennessee Vols basketball program

“It’s tough, because we want to play some other teams," Hardaway said. "It just won’t match the schedule, but the teams that want to play us, we want to play them, so."

"UT!" shouted one Memphis fan in attendance, which got Hardaway's attention with a grin. 

"Exactly,” Hardaway responded. “That would be another good one, to get the UT rivalry going again.”

Tennessee and Memphis were scheduled to play again in December 2021, but the game had to be cancelled due to the wave of positive COVID-19 tests that swept through the Tigers' program.  Barnes had some strong comments on the possibility (or non-possibility) of rescheduling the game later that year, due to the number of unvaccinated Tigers players. 

"We're not going to risk scheduling a team that has that many unvaccinated players, "Barnes said. "That would be irresponsible on our part, so, I mean, it could happen again. So, we wouldn't do that - whether it would be Memphis or anybody else. We had people call us after the game, after the cancellation the other day and said, 'can you play tomorrow?' If we'd have known earlier, we probably would have."

Of course, with that being years in the past now, the question now is: what about now?  It doesn't sound like Barnes is keen on adding Memphis back into the rotation anytime soon based on comments he made during the Memphis stop in the Big Orange Caravan this year. 

"We haven’t talked about that in a couple years, and it’s nowhere being talked about Barnes said,” he said. “With the changes, with new teams coming into our league (the SEC) — we just came out of playing historically the hardest, best conference ever. And so, everything we do (in) non-league will be based on where we feel our league is and what we need to do.”

As such, with Barnes focused on a typically challenging non-conference slate and an even-more challenging SEC schedule, it sounds like Hardaway and Memphis fans won't get their wish anytime soon.