As the Texas Tech basketball team continues to try to put together a championship roster for next season, let’s look at some of the guards still on the market.
We went into this offseason knowing that the Texas Tech basketball program would look to add a big man and a guard through the transfer portal. Saturday, the first of those two tasks was accomplished as Esahia Nywie, a 6-foot-10 JUCO forward, verbally committed to Chris Beard’s program.
But there still remains a need for veteran guard. More specifically, Beard needs to add a ball-dominant guard that can create offense for himself and his teammates off the dribble.
One of the main reasons Tech struggled in close games this past season was the fact that the team’s three primary guards, Davide Moretti, Jahmi’us Ramsey, and Kyler Edwards were all very similar players. All three are at their best when playing a role similar to that of the traditional shooting guard where they could catch and shoot from the wing.
But in close games, Tech needed one of them to be able to make plays off the dribble in the closing moments and none proved capable of doing so with any consistency. None of those players averaged more than Edwards’ 3.7 assists per 40 minutes played with both Moretti and Ramsey averaging fewer than three.
That’s a far cry from Tech’s two late-game heroes from the last two seasons. In 2017-18, Keenan Evans averaged 4.4 assists per 40 minutes while in 2018-19, Jarrett Culver averaged 4.6.
Now, it may be possible for one of the incoming freshmen to be able to fill that role next season. Nimari Burnett seems to be the most likely candidate given that the 6-foot-3, 5-star prospect is known for his ability to get to the rim. Also, 6-foot-7, 4-star forward Micah Peavy has a game that is reminiscent of Culver’s and he spent his senior year of high school running the show for Duncanville, one of the top teams in Texas.
However, counting on any freshman, regardless of how highly-ranked he may be, is never appealing to a coach. There are just too many examples of top recruits across the nation not living up to the hype in their first years on campus for anyone to simply assume that the next wave of high school players will be ready for staring roles.
Thus, Beard is looking for a veteran guard who has some skins on the wall in the college game. There have been several players around the nation to report offers from Tech but quite a few have already committed elsewhere. So let’s take a look at who is still available (even if they haven’t reported a Tech offer, they may have heard from the Red Raiders and not have made that public) and try to get a sense of which players would make the most sense for next year’s Red Raiders.