Texas Tech basketball: Strengths and weaknesses of the 2020-21 roster

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Head coach Chris Beard of the Texas Tech Red Raiders exits the hallway before the college basketball game against the LIU Sharks on November 24, 2019 at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /

Weakness: Height

Last year, Beard’s team was dominated at times by teams that had elite height like Kentucky, Iowa, and West Virginia. And this year’s team is not any taller than last year and that’s a bit of a concern.

In fact, the Red Raiders are a bit shorter this year in the starting lineup with 6-foot-7 Marcus Santos-Silva replacing 6-foot-8 T.J. Holyfield at one of the starting forward positions. However, Santos-Silva, a grad transfer from Virginia Commonwealth, has 20 pounds on Holyfield and that extra strength should allow him to be more of a factor defensively and on the glass.

Still, Tech will have only one player over 6-foot-8 and that’s true freshman Vlad Goldin. As we saw last year, counting on a true freshman 7-footer for big minutes may not be wise as Beard was reluctant to throw Russel Tchewa into the fire right away. The same will likely be the case for Goldin in his first year.

Also, don’t expect 6-foot-8 Joel Ntambwe to be a defensive stopper or dominant rebounder. Though he did average 5.5 boards per game as a true freshman at UNLV in 2018-19, he does not arrive in Lubbock on the strength of his defensive acumen. Rather, his job is to put the ball in the bucket.

An old basketball cliche says that you can’t coach height. And though there are ways to make up for that, the reality is that Tech will be outsized in the post on many nights by teams in the Big 12 unless Goldin proves to be a significant contributor right away, which seems a bit of a stretch.

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