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Texas Tech basketball: New G-League program won’t hurt Red Raiders

By Matthew Conner

FORT WAYNE, IN - OCTOBER 22: General view of the NBA Development League logo on the floor during a preseason game between the Indiana Pacers and the Charlotte Hornets at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum on October 22, 2015 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Pacers defeated the Hornets 98-86. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using the photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
FORT WAYNE, IN - OCTOBER 22: General view of the NBA Development League logo on the floor during a preseason game between the Indiana Pacers and the Charlotte Hornets at Allen County War Memorial Coliseum on October 22, 2015 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The Pacers defeated the Hornets 98-86. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using the photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /
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Head coach Chris Beard of the Texas Tech Red Raiders (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
Head coach Chris Beard of the Texas Tech Red Raiders (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) /

Coaching will be even more important

If we all truly believe that Chris Beard is one of the best coaches in the nation from a tactical and motivational perspective, we should welcome this G League challenge because it will level the talent gap between the haves and the have-nots thus making the ability of a coach to get the most out of his roster even more critical.

The simple reality is that there are a number of big-name coaches these days that seem to survive only on their past reputations and the big-name recruits they can attract because of what they’ve done in the past.  I won’t name names but we can all likely think about coaches that seem to annually have a roster chalked full of top-10 NBA Draft picks but who don’t seem to win titles or even get to the Final Four as much as they did in the 90s or 2000s.

So if we believe that Beard is a better coach than almost all of his peers, and there’s plenty of evidence to support that assertion, we would then be happy to see some of the traditional blue-blood programs lose top recruits to the G League, even if meant that Tech was to also lose a top target now and then.

That’s the model behind the sport of NASCAR as the rules in that association try to make the cars as evenly-matched as possible to see which drivers are the best.  If there was less of a gap between the talent on the Kansas, Kentucky, or Duke rosters than they have enjoyed over their conference opponents for decades, wouldn’t it stand to benefit the programs that are already making strides towards overtaking them?

Certainly, those traditional programs would still have their pick of the top players coming into the sport but the difference between a mid-level 4-star player and a 3-star player is not a huge as the difference between Zion Williamson and a 3-star player was in 2018-19.

Let’s say that next year’s NCAA season was rigged so that every team had the exact same level of talent.  Would anyone be able to name five coaches they would rather have lead their program that Chris Beard?  If they were honest and took their own biases towards their current head coaches out of the equation, the answer would be a resounding “no”.  Thus, if the playing field is leveled by top-end recruits heading to the G League, Tech could be in even better shape in its efforts to topple the traditional giants of the sport.

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