Texas Tech basketball: 5 pleasant surprises in 2020-21 season

Clarence Nadolny’s emergence as a key rotational piece

There was a point during this season when sophomore Clarence Nadolny was an afterthought.  But that all changed mid-season as he became a member of the regular rotation seemingly out of nowhere in what was one of this season’s biggest surprises.

It is rare to see a player go from the end of the bench to a regular rotation spot in the middle of the season but that’s what Nadolny managed to do.  In Tech’s first 21 games, the guard saw double-digit minutes in only six contests.  But in the final nine games of the year, he played double-digit minutes six more times.

His insertion into the rotation coincided with the 11-day pause in the season brought on by COVID-19 and February’s winter storm.  Over that time, Nadolny must have done something in practice to earn some legitimate playing time.

Still, his stats aren’t going to blow anyone away.  He averaged just 1.8 points and 1.1 rebounds per game.

However, his greatest contributions to this year’s team were of the intangible variety.  There was not a player on the roster who played with more of an edge than Nadolny.

Never afraid to mix it up, he embodied the “street-dog” mentality that his head coach is so fond of.  And time and again, Nadolny’s intensity seemed to spark his team to a run on the scoreboard, even if he wasn’t the one actually putting the ball in the bucket.

There was a time this season when Texas Tech basketball fans were speculating that Nadolny might be a candidate to transfer after this season given his relative lack of playing time.  However, in the middle of the year, he became an integral component of the rotation and that has to be considered one of the season’s most pleasant surprises as now, Nadolny looks to be a part of the future of the program.