Texas Tech basketball all-decade team: The point guards
First Team: Keenan Evans
There’s no question that the first-team All-2010 point guard is Keenan Evans. In fact, he’s the best point guard in program history.
From 2014-2018, he averaged 12 points and 2.6 assists per game. And of course, as a senior, he led his team to the 2018 Elite Eight.
Along the way, he earned consensus second-team All-American honors to go along with first-team All-Big 12 recognition in the best season any Texas Tech point guard has produced. As a result, he was just the fifth Red Raider to be named a finalist for the Wooden Award, given to the nation’s best player.
That year, he scored 17.6 points per game while dishing out 3.2 assists per game and grabbing 3.1 rebounds. If it had not been for a broken toe he sustained in a mid-February game in Waco, he would likely have earned Big 12 Player of the Year honors and the Red Raiders likely would have earned the conference title.
His 1,571 career points rank 13th in Tech history, just behind Sean Gay. And along with Gay, Evans is one of just four players in the exclusive 1,500-point, 350-rebound, 325-assist, and 125-steal club at Tech.
Starting 100 of his 133 career games, Evans became a prolific scorer. He hit double-figures 76 times including a 25-game streak from 12/21/2016 to 11/22/2017, 11th-longest by any Red Raider.
With only two offers from teams in one of the six major conferences (Tech and Colorado) as a high school recruit, he overachieved and surpassed all expectations. Ending his career with 23 games of 20 or more points, he evolved from a role player to a superstar.
It was his career-best 38-point game that turned out to be his defining moment. On January 31, 2018, he nailed a jumper from the elbow as time expired in overtime to lift the Red Raiders over Texas 73-71.
Also a tenacious defender, Evans quickly became the leader of the program under Chris Beard and he will likely forever be one of Beard’s favorite players.
"“It is like when you go to a good movie and you know it’s getting towards the end, but you are loving the movie so much, you want it to go a little bit farther,’’ Beard said in March of 2018 during the NCAA Tournament when asked about coaching Evans. “Or you’ve got a good plate of enchiladas and you’re looking at it, and you only have two bites left, but it’s so good, you turn it into three bites.’’"
No one could put it any better than that. And no point guard in Tech history has ever had a career that could rival Evans making him the no-brainer first-team All-2010 point guard for the Red Raiders.