Texas Tech basketball: Red Raiders in the mix for several top 2020 transfers

The Texas Tech basketball team continues to try to improve its roster and is squarely in the mix for some of its top transfer targets.

Change is the only constant in the Chris Beard era of Texas Tech basketball.  Every year that he’s been at the helm of the program has brought the type of roster turnover that might make fans from different eras of the game think that something was amiss within the lockerroom.

Over the three full offseasons that Beard has taken his program through, there have been 24 players (including walk-ons) leave the program.  That’s an average of 8 per year.

What’s unusual though is the fact that these departures have not been a sign of an unhealthy program, as one might assume at first glance.  Rather, Texas Tech basketball is such a hot commodity right now that Beard and his staff can essentially churn the roster every year to find scholarships for players that they believe are better than, or who are at least better fits than the players they are replacing.

That makes sense given how Beard has had to operate for most of his nomadic head coaching career.  Of his ten stops as either an assistant or head coach in the college and professional game, eight lasted no more than two seasons.  In fact, the only place he’s been on staff for more than two years is in Lubbock, where his two stints on the Red Raider bench have lasted a total of 15 years and counting.

Because he’s been on the move so often, he’s become a master at rebuilding rosters on the fly and he knows how to find talent that is ready to help his team immediately.  That might explain why he hasn’t traditionally been willing to wait multiple years for players to prove ready to help his program win because, at previous coaching stops, he knew that he might not have the luxury of waiting for the players he recruited to develop into contributors and now, he is fishing for players that can make his team better immediately because he has designs on competing for the national title every year.

So even though the Red Raiders had only two seniors on the 2019-20 team and already have three true freshmen signed up to join the program this summer (or perhaps this fall given the coronavirus pandemic), it’s going to be a busy offseason when it comes to transfers.  We can expect Tech to add one grad transfer for certain and smart money would bet on at least two new players coming aboard via the grad transfer or JUCO transfer routes.  How Beard juggles the scholarships would be anyone’s guess but given that he’s proven to be a master at doing just that, we all trust that the moves he makes are going to pay immediate dividends.

So with that said, let’s take a look at some updates from the recruiting trail when it comes to transfers.  And we will start with a JUCO transfer candidate that might remind many of one of Beard’s most popular former players.