Texas Tech basketball: What we learned in 2019-20

The NCAA is illogical

Taking a step back from our little Red Raider bubble, let’s look at another important lesson we learned this year and that is that we can’t count on the NCAA to make logical decisions.  That’s, of course, a reference to the decision to deny the eligibility waiver of Joel Ntambwe.

By now, Red Raider fans are well aware that the 6-foot-8 sophomore forward was the only one of five members from the 2018-18 UNLV team that was denied immediate eligibility in 2019-20 after transferring in the wake of a coaching change in Vegas.  We don’t need to rehash the illogical nature of that decision.

Rather, let’s look back at what we learned and that is that rosters can’t be built around the premise that any NCAA ruling will go the way we hope.  That was a huge problem with this year’s team.

There is no question Beard and his coaching staff were confident that Ntambwe, who averaged 11.8 points per game as a true freshman last year, would be able to play this season.  That’s one reason why they were comfortable going into the season with only one other veteran forward, Holyfield, on the roster.

Of course, the foot injury that kept true freshman forward Tyreek Smith out all season was also part of compounding Tech’s woes in the post.  Still, there’s no question that the team expected Ntambwe to be part of the mix this year.

One has to wonder if that will impact the way that Beard approaches undergraduate transfers moving forward.  Of course, there is a growing groundswell of support for a rule change that would give all players one free transfer without having to sit out but until that happens, it’s fair to question whether this is an avenue to depend on outside of extreme circumstances.

But in a way, the NCAA actually did Tech a favor.  Now that we know the 2020 NCAA Tournament is not going to take place, hindsight shows us that it would have been a shame for the Red Raiders to have Ntambwe play this year (especially if he had not been granted eligibility until well into conference play) only to not be able to benefit from his presence in March.  Remember, many people believe that Ntambwe is a legitimate NBA prospect and he, in fact, went through the draft evaluation process last year so it’s not crazy to think that he could be at Tech for just one year.

Had we known that there was going to be no tournament this year, we would not have been clambering for Ntambwe to have his waiver approved as we were for most of the season.  But while that break actually went Tech’s way, we all were ultimately reminded through this situation that we can never count on the NCAA to do right by a player or an institution.