Texas Tech basketball: Why this Red Raider team is so inconsistent

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Head coach Chris Beard of the Texas Tech Red Raiders talks with guard Chris Clarke (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /

This year’s grad transfers just aren’t as good as last year’s

On one hand, it feels unfair to ask this year’s grad transfers, Chris Clarke and T.J. Holyfield, to measure up to last year’s duo of Matt Mooney and Tariq Owens. But the reality is that they were brought in to give this team a similar boost and fulfill the same type of roles as Mooney and Ownes and thus far, they just haven’t been able to measure up.

It isn’t that they have been a disaster. Both are useful pieces and both are critically important to this team’s hopes of success in March.

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Holyfield is fourth on the team in scoring at 9.0 p.p.g. while his 4.8 rebounds per game are second on the roster. And like Owens did last year, Holyfield leads the team in blocks (but his 1.6 per game is nowhere near the 2.4 Owens amassed in a record-setting year).

Meanwhile, Clarke leads the team in rebounds at 6.6 per game and assists at 4.8 per game. But throughout the year, he’s been so much more inconsistent than either of last year’s grad transfers ever were. In fact, both he and Holyfield have had periods of struggle that have hurt this team.

After not playing against Iowa State on Saturday as Chris Beard tried to send him a message about effort and focus, Clarke responded with 11 points and six rebounds against OU on Tuesday night. But that was his first ten-plus point game since he had 14 points against Southern Miss back in mid-December. Though Clarke has become known for his defensive and assists this year, make no mistake, Tech was counting on him to be more of a scorer than he has proven to be.

For his career, he never averaged fewer than 8.2 points per game at Virginia Tech but this year, he’s scoring just 5.7. What’s more, in February, his assists have fallen to 2.2 per game and his rebounds have dropped to just 2.6.

Meanwhile, Holyfield (who has battled through a shoulder injury for almost all of Big 12 play) has bee solid but not spectacular. His season numbers are slightly lower than his career averages, which is to be expected given that he’s stepped up in competition after playing three years at Stephen F. Austin. But he’s struggled to stay out of foul trouble and when he has, Tech has been severely hamstrung.

We were all spoiled by how well Mooney and Owens played last year. You could make the argument that they were Tech’s second and third-best players behind Culver.

While we all know that Beard is a master at piecing together rosters on the fly, we were naive in thinking that he would just plug two more grad transfers into the lineup and not see a drop-off. Also, keep in mind that neither Holyfield nor Clarke were Tech’s top grad transfer targets.

Beard hosted 6-foot-10 Yanni Wetzell (11.7 points and 6.5 rebounds per game for San Diego State this year) and guard Admon Gilder (10.3 points and 3.1 assists for Gonzaga this year) over the offseason and both would have been welcome additions. In fact, had one of both decided to come to Tech, it’s likely that a player like Clarence Nadolny might not have been added to the roster or Avery Benson would not have been put on scholarship.

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But regardless of how we got to this point, it’s clear that this year’s grad transfers aren’t going to be as dynamic as last year’s. Now, that doesn’t mean they can’t be important winning pieces this year but their inconsistencies have left this young roster lacking when it comes to the steely poise and unflappable leadership that last year’s team got from Mooney and Owens. And because there are no other seniors on the roster to help steady the ship a la Norense Odiase and Brandone Francis a season ago, Tech has had a much more uneven go of things in 2019-20.

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