Texas Tech basketball: Davide Moretti reportedly offered professional contract in Italy

Texas Tech basketball fans now have to worry about whether Davide Moretti will return for his senior year after he received a contract offer from a professional team in his native Italy.

When you have the type of talent that Texas Tech basketball head coach Chris Beard has assembled in Lubbock, the vultures are certain to come sniffing around.  (Do vultures have the ability to sniff?  Anyway…)  Just as we were ready to begin thinking about how loaded the 2020-21 roster was set to be, the team’s unquestioned on-court leader and the only senior in the program to have played a game for the Scarlet and Black, Davide Moretti, received an offer to play professionally in his home country of Italy.

Reporter Chris Harper Tweeted that the offer from Armani Milano (which sounds more like a high-end men’s clothier than a basketball team) is for two years with an option for a third.  Harper also said that Moretti will be expected by the Italian club to make his decision soon.

But just because Moretti has an offer on the table, it doesn’t mean Texas Tech basketball fans should just assume he is gone.  Remember that for the entirety of his time in Lubbock, his father Paolo has been the head coach of OriOra Pistoia in Italy, and in each of the two previous offseasons, he’s been rumored to at least be weighing his options in regard to returning to his homeland where it was assumed that he had a spot waiting for him on his father’s team.

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Now, he is faced with another decision about his basketball future, and this time, the global coronavirus pandemic makes his choice even more difficult.  Shortly after the cancellation of the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments, Moretti returned home to Italy to be with his family during the crisis.  One has to wonder if that has made his feelings about staying closer to his loved ones that much stronger.

However, in early April, Moretti said that he was leaning towards returning to Tech.  It is important to keep in mind that those remarks came after the start of the pandemic and during a time when Italy was being ravaged by COVID-19 as much as any nation on the planet.   What’s more, the fact that he was even being asked about his future plans at that time would seem to indicate that he already knew he would have professional options next year.  That’s reason to hope that he will still return.

We do not know what the terms of the contract offer were so it is tough to make any predictions about what the best shooter to come through Lubbock in at least the last two decades will ultimately do.  But what we do know is that either way, this choice will have a massive impact on next year’s Texas Tech basketball team and possibly the national title race.

Moretti’s ability to space the floor is expected to be a key component of the offense in 2020-21.  He and Kyler Edwards are the only two proven 3-point shooters currently in the program (though last season’s top 3-point shooter, Jahmi’us Ramsey, could still return for his sophomore year after testing the NBA waters) and with the presence of incoming freshman Nimari Burnett, those two will likely be asked to handle the ball less than they did in 2019-20 thus allowing them to do what they do best, catch and shoot.

Across the roster, Tech will have players more than capable of slashing their way to the basket.  But if Moretti and Ramsey (last year’s leading scorer at 15 points per game) both depart, Beard will suddenly find that his roster is short on knock-down long-range shooters.

As a junior, Moretti averaged 13 points. 1.2 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game while playing a career-high in minutes and starting every game for the second-straight year.  And of course, he’s become a fan favorite in Lubbock thanks to the numerous clutch shots he’s drained for the Red Raiders.

Ultimately, next year’s Texas Tech basketball team will be stacked with more talent than any team in the history of the program, even if Moretti leaves.  However, what the sharpshooter decides to do could mean the difference in Tech starting the year as a Final Four favorite of as just one of a handful of teams that people give an outside shot at getting to Indianapolis next April.