What Texas Tech Can Learn From Villanova

Monday, Texas Tech fans watched as the team that eliminated the Red Raiders in the Elite 8, Villanova, captured the national title. There are a number of lessons that Texas Tech can learn from the model the Wildcats have used to dominate the game.

The college basketball season is over and Villanova has won its second title in three seasons. Meanwhile, Texas Tech fans have been quick to take to social media claiming that Tech gave Villanova its toughest test of the tournament.

Texas Tech and West Virginia both had the smallest margins of defeat (12 points) to the national champs in the NCAA Tournament and a case could be made by both fanbases that their team was the toughest test the Cats faced. But more importantly than arguing over which team can take the biggest moral victory from losing to Villanova, it would be more productive to look at How Villanova built this team and what Texas Tech could emulate as they try to get to where Nova currently sits.

Build The Program Around Three or Four-Year Players

The prevailing trend with most of the top college basketball teams has been to build a roster around high school all-Americans that are likely to be one-and-done in college. In that regard, Villanova is an outlier.

Six Wildcats averaged at least 10 points a game this season and four of them are juniors. That is a stark contrast to teams like Kentucky and Duke which annually load up on freshman who are treating their lone season in college like a prison sentence they must serve before heading to the promised land of the NBA Draft.

Villanova’s star point guard Jalen Brunson is a junior who is rated as the 27th best NBA draft prospect by CBSSports.com making him a likely candidate to return. The only Nova player rated to be a lottery pick is junior forward Mikal Bridges (13th overall by CBSSports.com).

That bodes well for Texas Tech and Chris Beard. Tech is far from being the type of program that will attract McDonald’s All-Americans to campus with regularity. But Villanova has proven that recruiting good players that intend to be in the program for three or four years is a strategy that can win a national title.

That’s not to say that The Cats have been scraping the bottom of the recruiting barrel. Brunson and Omari Spellman were both 5-star recruits but neither was a one-and-done type prospect.

Texas Tech appears to be on the right path. Verbal commit Khavon Moore is a 4-star prospect ranked in the top 60 recruits in the country and we discussed the number of top prospects the Red Raiders are targeting in the wake of their Elite 8 run.

Tech needs to stay the course in recruiting the type of players that will fit into Beard’s system and buy in to what he wants them to do. That is how Jay Wright built his program at Villanova and is a great model for Tech to follow.

Have Scorers At Every Position

The biggest difference between Texas Tech and Villanova this season was the Wildcats’ ability to have five lethal scorers on the court at all times. As stated earlier, Nova had six players average at least 10 points per game. Tech had just three.

In fact, Tech’s fourth-leading scorer, Niem Stevenson would have been just the seventh-leading scorer on the Cats’ roster. That proved to be the difference when the two teams squared off.

In that game, five Wildcats scored in double figures while only two Red Raiders (Evans and Zhaire Smith) were able to do the same. Texas Tech was able to keep Nova’s top two scores, Brunson and Bridges in check, holding both below their season averages.

Likewise, Nova did the same to Tech holding Evans to just 12 points. The difference came in the production Villanova got from its supporting players.

DiVincenzo added 12 timely points off the bench while Spellman and Paschall both had double-digit games. Tech’s offense was shut down by a statistically average Villanova defense that focused all its efforts on Keenan Evans because Nova didn’t fear any of the other scorers on the court.

For Tech to be a more dangerous offense, Beard must find more players capable of being offensive threats when the team’s top scorer struggles. Too many players on the Red Raiders (Odiase, Hamilton, Gray, Zach Smith) were not consistent offensive producers and that eventually cost Texas Tech against an elite team.

Consistency At The Top Is Key

The biggest difference between Texas Tech and Villanova can be found at the top of the program. Jay Wright has been in charge of the Wildcats since 2001, the same year Bob Knight came to Lubbock. Over that time, Texas Tech has had six different head coaches.

More from Wreck'Em Red

Thought it seems hard to fathom now, Wright failed to get any of his first three teams to the NCAA Tournament until 2005. But Villanova stuck with him and has been rewarded with over a decade of excellence.

Texas Tech has had a revolving door at head coach since the retirement of Bob Knight. Some of that was a result of poor hires (Pat Knight, Billie Gillespie) and some of that was out of Tech’s hands (Tubby Smith).

But now, that problem appears to be solved. Beard is a perfect fit for Texas Tech and was rewarded with a 6-year contract extension last month.

The good news is that Beard has done in two years at Tech what it took Wright five seasons to do at Nova, reach the Elite 8. That does not mean Beard’s program will follow the same arc as Wright’s but the two men are similar coaches.

Next: Top 5 Basketball Games of 2017-18

Both are charismatic leaders who are hard on their players and expect excellence in every aspect of the game. By allowing Beard to have security with his contract and giving him the financial resources and facility upgrades needed to compete, fans can expect Texas Tech basketball to continue to grow and hopefully find itself in the same class as Villanova.

Home/Texas Tech Basketball