Texas Tech basketball: Ranking the Chris Beard transfers
No. 4: T.J. Holyfield
T.J. Holyfield was the other grad transfer Beard placed a huge yolk upon in 2019-20 and he handled it better than Clarke but he never quite lived up to the expectations of Tech fans. After all, he was down to Tech and Kansas when he was picking a school to play for after three years at Stephen F. Austin thus giving many in Lubbock reason to believe he was a primo player.
The 6-foot-8 Albuquerque, New Mexico native was also coming off of a year away from the court but unlike Clarke, his absence was because of a shoulder injury. That ailment flared up on him again half-way through this past season and it served to make him less aggressive with his shot than we would have liked to see meaning that both of the grad transfers on the 2019-20 team were at times timid with the ball.
Still, Holyfield was useful. He averaged 8.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks per game while starting all but one contest.
Interestingly, it was a game in which he scored only two points that will be his most memorable moment as a Red Raider. In the win at Austin, he had five blocks, including three in the final 30 seconds, to help Tech preserve a one-possession lead on the way to a four-point victory.
He also had three 20-point games, including 21 against Oklahoma in Lubbock. And playing at Kansas, he had 19 strong points thanks in large part to hitting 3-5 shots from beyond the arc.
But he didn’t do himself any favors by getting off to the type of torrid start that he did. In his first three games as a Red Raider, he averaged 18.7 points per game and fans were ready to commission a statue of him to be displayed in front of the U.S.A.
However, he would top the 15-point mark just three more times during the season after doing so in each of his first three games. That led to some frustration from his constituency.
Holyfield was also asked to play a bit out of position as the biggest player in the regular rotation. He often had to go against players several inches taller and 20 or more pounds heavier than he was and that might have taken a physical toll on him as the season wore on.
In the end, Holyfield and Clarke will have an incomplete career given the fact that they never got to play out their season thanks to the coronavirus. And just like the 2019-20 season itself, both left us wanting just a little bit more than we got from them.