Texas Tech basketball: Red Raiders reportedly pursuing NCAA’s top rebounder

According to a report, the Texas Tech basketball program is pursuing Kevin Marfo, a potential grad transfer who led the NCAA in rebounding this past season.

While we are all lamenting the lack of an NCAA Tournament, which would be set to begin this week, the Texas Tech basketball coaching staff is already looking to assemble a roster capable of making another March run when the madness returns a year from now.  Never one to let the grass grow under his feet, Chris Beard has reportedly reached out to a player who could help address one of the biggest weaknesses of the 2019-20 Red Raiders.

According to Corey Evans, national basketball analyst at Rivals.com, Tech has been in touch with Kevin Marfo, who led the nation in rebounding while playing for Quinnipiac this season.  The 6-foot-8, 245-pounder averaged an amazing 13.3 rebounds this season to go along with 10.2 points per game.

Evans also lists such programs as Oklahoma State, Louisville, Virginia Tech, Texas A&M, Arkansas, and a slew of other programs as having reached out to Marfo.  It’s a testament to just how invaluable rebounding is that this player from a school that few outside the northeast have ever heard of is now a hot commodity in the college basketball world.

This past season, Texas Tech was just an average rebounding team by Big 12 standards.  Overall, the Red Raiders finished the year ranked 6th in the conference in rebounding margin.  Amazingly, Tech wound up at 0.00 in that category meaning that the Red Raiders grabbed 1,037 rebounds while allowing their opponents to collect the exact same number over the course of 31 games.

In the all-important area of offensive rebounding, Beard’s team was just 8th in the Big 12.  Pulling down 9.06 offensive boards per game, Tech trailed the Big 12’s best team, West Virginia, by over six offensive boards per game.

Nationally, the Raiders were just 184th out of 350 teams in rebound margin.  What’s more, they were just No. 245 in offensive rebounding.

Needless to say, that’s something that has to improve next season.  It’s certain to be a priority for this offseason and it will require improvement to come from within as the players on the roster must do their part by becoming stronger physically and more willing mentally to accept the rigors of battling on the glass.

But it also appears that Beard is going to address this problem by adding to his roster and Marfo might be a perfect fit.  So let’s take a look at how he might help next year’s Red Raiders by first looking more closely at what type of player he is.