Texas Tech basketball: Preseason poll should put chip on Red Raiders’ shoulder

By being picked 5th in the Big 12 basketball preseason poll, the Texas Tech basketball team should carry a chip on its shoulder this season.

Preseason polls are worthless.  All they serve to do is give us some fodder to debate as we wait for the action to begin.  But yet, they sure do seem to get under the skin of fans and that’s likely going to be the case with the 2020-21 Big 12 preseason basketball poll (voted on by the league’s coaches).  What’s more, one has to wonder if it will also be a burr under the saddle of Chris Beard and his team.

By being picked to finish just 5th in this year’s preseason poll, the Red Raiders have gone back to being the overlooked contender in the conference.  Of course, the last time the Red Raiders were this overlooked, they rode that disrespect to the best season in program history.

Remember that the 2018-19 preseason poll had the Red Raiders projected to finish just 7th in the conference.  That gave Beard an easy motivational card to play and it proved to be a fact that he would constantly remind everyone of throughout the year.

His methodology worked to perfection as Tech won a share of the Big 12 regular-season crown before playing in the National Title Game in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  One has to hope a similar script plays out this season.

On the one hand, it is easy to see why the league’s coaches may not be high on the Red Raiders.  The offseason departures of Jahmi’us Ramsey and Davide Moretti have left Tech without last season’s top two scorers.

But the level of talent that Beard has stockpiled on his roster can’t be denied.  Yet for some reason, the Red Raiders are pegged to sit right in the middle of the league race.

Baylor sits at No. 1 in the poll, the first time the Bears have ever had that distinction.  Kansas, West Virginia, and Texas are the other three teams ahead of Tech (in that order).  Sitting right behind Beard’s team is Oklahoma followed by Oklahoma State, Iowa State, TCU, and Kansas State.

Also adding to the fuel that could burn within the Red Raiders this year is the fact that no player on the roster made the preseason all-Big12 team.  The closest to that honor Tech got was the naming of Kyler Edwards and Mac McClung to the honorable-mention group.

However, one Red Raider did earn some preseason love when transfer forward Marcus Santos-Silva was named the preseason Newcomer of the Year.  Last year at Virginia Commonwealth he averaged 12.8 points and 8.9 rebounds per game and he will be a huge component of what the Red Raiders will look to do on both ends of the court this year.

Though being picked so low in the preseason poll is an obvious slight for Beard’s team and for the coach himself as it discounts what he has proven capable of doing throughout his career when it comes to rebuilding rosters on the fly, it could serve as a positive in the long run.  That’s because we’ve already seen what Beard can accomplish when he has the disrespect card to play.