Memphis basketball signee Mikey Williams’ hopes of playing for the Tigers took another hit today.
The 4-star recruit’s preliminary hearing for his 6 gun-related felony charges was again postponed from July 12 to Sept. 5, per the San Diego Union-Tribune. It was originally pushed back from June 29 to July 12 on June 15.
In addition to the new court date, a new readiness conference for Williams’ hearing will happen on Aug. 16.
Can Williams Still Make it to Campus?
Needless to say, it’s now extremely hard to foresee Williams being at Memphis in 2023-24. Even harder than it was before.
The Tigers are traveling to the Dominican Republic from Aug. 1-7 to play three exhibition games. The fall semester at the University of Memphis begins on Aug. 28.
With Williams’ court date now taking place after both events, the legal process is nearly impossible to work around for head coach Penny Hardaway and staff. While there isn’t a known policy against enrolling students with felony charges at Memphis, it wouldn’t be a good look for a university located in a city that’s had its well-documented struggles with gun violence.
It simply wouldn’t send the right message locally nor nationally.
Reactions to Williams’ Legal Situation
Many Memphians have already expressed their discomfort with the idea of Williams’ enrollment, including Gary Parrish, a 1999 Memphis graduate who now covers college basketball for CBS Sports.
“If you fire a loaded gun into a car filled with people, and you are caught doing that, there are prices to pay. And the first price you gotta pay is you can’t play college basketball at my university,” Parrish said during an April 17 episode of his show on Grind City Media. He has reiterated this sentiment numerous times since then.
Hardaway, meanwhile, has maintained his support for Williams throughout this entire process. He most recently spoke about it at TPC Southwind on June 5 prior to a round of golf.
“Obviously, every coach has an opportunity to detach themselves from a situation if they want to, [but] I’m not that type,” he said. “We have to let everything play itself out first and not overreact. I’m not calling him guilty before he’s innocent. A lot of people do that. But, for me, we’re just staying the course until we figure this whole entire thing out.”
With today’s setback, however, there likely isn’t time to figure “this whole entire thing out” for Memphis. It has a program to run and a team to field. As of now, it looks that much more probable Williams isn’t a part of that team.
With Alabama transfer Jahvon Quinerly likely committing to Memphis in the coming days, the writing is seemingly on the wall.
