Penny Hardaway knows something has to change for Memphis basketball.

The Tigers lost back-to-back games last week, including Sunday's humiliating 106-79 loss at SMU. Their coach did not mince words after the game, calling the team's effort "embarrassing."

He doubled down Monday night during his weekly radio show, saying he planned to limit his rotation in Wednesday's home game against Charlotte to players who have "bought in."

"It's just too embarrassing to play a game like we did yesterday. We fought in the North Texas game and just couldn't score. But yesterday, it was a lack of effort. And that can't happen. That's unacceptable," he said. "If you see the guys on the floor on Wednesday, those are the guys that are bought in."

Memphis had won three straight games before falling at North Texas on Thursday night, then getting blown out by the Mustangs. The pair of losses all but extinguished the Tigers' hopes of getting an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament and represented an obvious low point in a season where they were ranked as high as No. 10 in the country.

As he often has during the team's struggles of the past month, Hardaway pointed to the season-ending injury suffered by guard Caleb Mills in early January as a turning point. Hardaway called him the "glue" of a team that comprises almost entirely of transfers.

Last season's team also had transfers, Hardaway said, but no one has taken on the leadership roles that DeAndre Williams, Alex Lomax and Kendric Davis did.

"There's no true leader of that like A-Lo was or DeAndre was," he said. "And DeAndre wasn't from here, but he definitely loved the city of Memphis, and he played that way. And these new guys haven't really taken on that attitude of really playing for the city the way that DeAndre and Kendric did as well. So that's what we're battling right now."

Hardaway again implored his team to play for "the city and the school." He said the Tigers had one of their toughest practices of the year on Monday. After Wednesday's game against Charlotte, they host FAU on Sunday in a rematch of last season's first-round NCAA Tournament game, won by the Owls, 66-65.

"The guys that are going to play now, there has to be a care factor about the city and the school," he said. "There has to be. There has to be going out there on the court and leaving it on the line. People get up in arms about how many guys I play. Well, the six or seven guys that are in the rotation usually are the guys that aren't rebounding and aren't really the best defenders. So now you've got to choose offense or defense.

"And right now, we want to go to war. We want to fight every possession . . . If these guys aren't doing it, you've got to bring guys in off the bench that are going to do it. And I think that's where the team is."

Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @thejonahdylan.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Penny Hardaway: Memphis' rotation limited to 'guys that are bought in'