Texas Tech basketball: Potential starting lineups without Davide Moretti

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General view of United Supermarkets Arena during player introductions (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /

Nimari, Kyler, McCullar, Ntambwe, Santos-Silva

There’s one potential fly in the ointment for next season’s team and that is the eligibility of Mac McClung. As an undergraduate transfer, he will have to receive a waiver from the NCAA in order to be able to play this season. We saw last year with Joel Ntambwe attempting to do the same just how dicey it is to count on that process working out in Tech’s favor.

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For certain, Beard and his staff believe that the case McClung has for immediate eligibility is strong. If not, they would have tried to bring in another player that was certain to be on the court such as a grad transfer.

But if the worst-case scenario plays out and McClung isn’t able to play, Tech would likely put Burnett in the role of the primary ball-handler and creator. He would then be flanked by Edwards and either McCullar or Shannon. For the sake of this discussion, we’ll say McCullar would be the one given that he ended this season as the starter over Shannon.

This lineup would be stout, even without a player of McClung’s ability. In fact, this lineup would arguably be better than last year’s starting five of Edwards, Moretti, Ramsey, Holyfield, and McCullar or Shannon.

But in this scenario, Burnett would have to shoulder a massive portion of the load. He would be the unquestioned lead ball-handler and would have to do a ton of creating while also being asked to score more than he would in other starting lineups on this list.

That’s because neither McCullar nor Edwards is equipped to break defenses down off the dribble. In fact, if McClung can’t play this year, Tech will not have any player on the roster who has proven at the college level capable of that task.

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Still, this is a lineup that would be one of the better starting fives in program history. It would put to shame any that we saw in the years between the end of the Bob Knight era and the start of the Chris Beard era and the individual components are more talented than just about any of the Knight era teams. However, we had all better hope that Mac McClung is granted eligibility because he will bring something to the table that no one else on the roster has proven he can.

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