NEW ORLEANS — Penny Hardaway's eyes never left the stat sheet on the table in front of him as he made his opening statement to reporters following Sunday's loss at Tulane.

The Memphis basketball coach led with Jaykwon Walton and Nae'Qwan Tomlin injury updates. Then it seemed like the gravity of the position the Tigers (15-4, 4-2 AAC) find themselves in hit Hardaway like a ton of bricks. It seemed like the compound effect of back-to-back losses to South Florida and the Green Wave — teams they had been favored to beat — dawned on him.

It seemed like in that moment, he realized the deflating defeats that happened during a 72-hour span might have completely erased all the latitude his team had earned from their 10 straight wins, including victories over Texas A&M, Clemson and Virginia.

"It just seems like when it rains, it pours, man," Hardaway said, propping his head up with his right hand. "We do everything possible to give this game away and did."

At that point, he could only shake his head and grit his teeth. After all, the Tigers started the week by moving up to No. 12 in the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll. Despite less-than-ideal positions (outside the top 40) in other, more metrics-based rankings (KenPom and the NET), most bracketologists agreed that Memphis was on track for a top-4 NCAA Tournament seed.

Now Hardaway is convinced that the script for this season is destined to play out much like each of the past two seasons have. Which is to say, he believes because the Tigers squandered a 20-point second-half lead at home in the loss to USF and they could not hang on to a seven-point second-half lead versus Tulane, there is no more breathing room left.

“I’m used to seeing this Memphis versus the other Memphis — and being in adversity," he said. "Everything that we've earned (with the 10-game winning streak), these last two games, we just gave it away for the whole season."

The Tigers' margin for error was already slim, given the lack of in-conference opportunities to pick up wins against quality opponents. Hardaway believes that window is as tight as ever.

That's not the most concerning part about it for Hardaway, though. The part that continues to frustrate him, making him restless in postgame news conferences, is that these are not new issues. On Sunday — three days after pulling back the curtain and plainly stating that his team has some very real chemistry problems — he reiterated how consistent those issues have been since the season began. Everything he and his staff have tried, he said, has not worked.

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“We got the response that we wanted (from last week’s airing of the team’s dirty laundry) up until about the seven-minute mark of the game (Sunday),” he said. “Then it started to get a little blurry. Guys not getting touches and you could see the body language start to change.”

And Hardaway worries if the headaches will ever end. The Tigers get a week off to prepare for their next game, this time at UAB (12-6, 4-1). The Blazers are one of six teams with one league loss and currently ahead of Memphis in the AAC standings.

“What we’ve been doing with these guys all year, we’re gonna keep doing the same exact things,” he said. “Keep showing them, keep teaching them and hoping when the game starts, it changes.”

Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or follow him @munzly on X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: How Penny Hardaway is irked by same old script for Memphis basketball