Texas Tech basketball: Potential starting lineups for 2020-21

Davide Moretti, Kyler Edwards, Nimari Burnett, Joel Ntambwe, Marcus Santos-Silva

In the first staring five that we will consider, Tech will have an extremely veteran lineup on the floor to open games.  That’s something every coach likes to have, especially Beard, who has frequently said that he values age.

Thus, he could open with seniors Davide Moretti and Marcus Santos-Silva, junior Kyler Edwards, redshirt sophomore Joel Ntambwe, and true freshman Nimari Burnett.  That seems to be the most likely combination to start games this season, at least according to most fans.

Moving forward, let’s assume that both Ntambwe and Santos-Silva will be starters in every lineup.  That’s a safe bet given the fact that they are the only forwards on the roster with any experience at the Division-I level.  It’s also safe to put Moretti in every one of our starting five possibilities.

Burnett, the No. 28 player in the 2020 signing class and the program’s first McDonald’s All-American, would be the point guard in this lineup.  Though both Edwards and Moretti are capable of setting up the offense as well, this lineup would ask Burnett to create for those two outside shooters who are better when catching and firing than they are when having to create off the bounce.

Meanwhile, the 6-foot-9 Ntambwe and the 6-foot-7 Santos-Silva would be a powerful front-court tandem, though they would lack the height that most fans would want.  We recently discussed how the 6-foot-7, 250-pound Santos-Silva is able to use his upper-body strength to be one of the nation’s most effective power forwards on both ends of the floor and the 6-foot-8, 220-pound Ntambwe played quite a bit of power forward as a true freshman for UNLV in 2018-19.  Thus, there simply wouldn’t be too much concern with their ability to man the post.

What you also have to like about this lineup is that it is far more balanced than any Beard utilized this past season.  It would have a player in Burnett who is capable of breaking down the defense off the dribble while Moretti and Edwards would be able to space the floor.  Meanwhile, Santos-Silva is an old-school forward who brings a low-post offensive game to the floor that this program hasn’t had in the Beard era.  Then there’s Ntambwe, who is an all-around positionless player capable of scoring in just about any way needed.

There’s no question that this lineup would be rather prolific offensively but defensively one has to wonder if the backcourt would be as stout as need be.  In this lineup, the tallest guard on the floor would be the 6-foot-4 Edwards.

What’s more, he and Moretti were the two worst players on this past season’s team in terms of defensive rating, an estimate of the number of points a player allows per 100 possessions.  So in our next lineup possibility, let’s look at how Beard could make his starting five more formidable on defense.