The NCAA announced Wednesday that University of Memphis head men's basketball coach Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway has been suspended for the first three games of the 2023-24 season because of recruiting violations.

Per Jason Munz of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the violations occurred during the 2021-22 academic year and were related to "in-home visits with a prospect before the appropriate recruiting period based on that prospect's year in high school."

Hardaway will miss the Tigers' Nov. 6 opener against Jackson State, the Nov. 10 road game at Missouri and the Nov. 17 matchup with Alabama State.

According to Munz, the NCAA decision states that an assistant coach who is no longer with Memphis visited the recruit at his home, and Hardaway followed suit two weeks later. NCAA rules stated that those visits needed to occur at the recruit's school.

Memphis previously received other punishments in December, including "one year of probation, a two-week ban on all communications related to recruiting, a reduction of in-person recruiting days by four, the loss of two official visits, and a $5,000 fine."

After starring collegiately at Memphis, Hardaway was the No. 3 overall pick in the 1993 NBA draft, and he went on to become a four-time All-Star in 14 NBA seasons with the Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns, New York Knicks and Miami Heat.

Hardaway became an assistant basketball coach at East High School in Memphis in 2015 and was promoted to head coach in 2017 before taking the head coaching job at his alma mater in 2018.

In five seasons at Memphis, Hardaway has posted a 111-52 record. After reaching the second round of the NIT in 2019 and winning the NIT in 2021, Hardaway led the Tigers to the NCAA tournament in each of the past two seasons.

Memphis went 22-11 and reached the second round of the NCAA tourney in 2022, and last season it went 26-9 and won the American Athletic Conference tournament, but fell in the first round of the NCAA tournament as an 8-seed to a ninth-seeded Florida Atlantic team that went all the way to the Final Four.

If Memphis returns to the NCAA tournament next season, it will mark the first time the Tigers have gone to the tourney in three or more straight seasons since making four in a row from 2010 through 2014.