Memphis basketball started summer workouts last Tuesday, and there are plenty of questions for the new roster. Penny Hardaway replaced most of the roster that went 13-19 a year ago, and it appears to be an important season for the head coach and the program.

The Tigers brought in nine players from the transfer portal and three incoming freshmen, and all 14 players are already on campus.

Here are three questions for Memphis basketball as it starts summer workouts.

All 14 players are on campus for the Tigers, but Hardaway still has one available roster spot to use before he reaches the roster limit. The head coach joined Wolo & Friends with Dave Woloshin a month ago and told Woloshin that he would like to hold onto the final roster spot going into the season.

Has anything changed in the last month?

The current roster answers a lot of questions, but the glaring weakness is the size in the frontcourt. Memphis doesn’t have anyone over 6-foot-9 on the roster, but the coaching staff has brought in big men who excel in rebounding.

The debate will be: do you bring in a shot blocker or do you rely on the defense and rebounding capabilities of the big men already on the roster? It appears that the obvious addition would be a rim protector, but Hardaway could look to add depth to the guard or wing positions.

The Tigers brought in 12 new players this year, with Julius Thedford and William Whorton being the only two returnees from last season’s team. With so many new faces, who will emerge as the leaders on the team?

Thedford seems like an easy selection as he prepares for his junior season. He saw the most playing time for Hardaway last year, and he will know the system and what the head coach expects from the team as a whole.

It makes the most sense for him to take charge of the team, but he wasn’t a super vocal player a year ago.

There are a few players from the transfer portal who could become immediate leaders. Jayden Reid could emerge at the point guard position, and he’s a player who knows this conference after spending two years at South Florida.

Brandin Cummings, Tylik Weeks and Carneilous Williams are three other players who could emerge as early leaders, and it appears Hardaway will look to all four of those newcomers early and often.

Most of Memphis’ non-conference schedule has been announced, but it will be interesting to see what happens with the four remaining openings. This season, the NCAA is allowing teams to play 32 games, and the Tigers will take advantage of that by playing an additional non-conference game.

Memphis will start the season in South Dakota for a neutral site game against Iowa State before returning home to host VCU. The Tigers will head to the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis in late November, and they will play another neutral-site game in Chicago against Dayton.

Hardaway’s team already has six high-major opponents on the schedule, and they will add a few buy games before it’s finalized.

There has been discussion about St. Jude moving its event to the regular season, but there has been no announcement about it.