Texas Tech basketball: Avery Benson personified being a Red Raider

There’s a reason Avery Benson was a Texas Tech basketball fan favorite.  And there’s a reason that his departure from the program, which he announced on Thursday, feels different than the other departures that we’ve seen over the last few weeks in the wake of the head coaching transition.

From a basketball perspective, I’m not sad or upset about Benson’s entrance into the transfer portal.  After all, he never averaged over 1.8 points per game in his Red Raider career.  He was not a key role player and never averaged more than 9.6 minutes of playing time per appearance.

Sure, he had his moments.  Against No. 1 Louisville in 2019 at Madison Square Garden in New York, he put up 10 points, 4 rebounds, and two spectacular blocks to help the Red Raiders stun the Cardinals.

But Benson was more of a culture guy.  One who helped establish what it meant to be a Texas Tech basketball player.

That’s why we will miss him and why it is bittersweet to see him depart.  Obviously, we wish him well and hope that his next chapter is successful.  But we will miss all of the hustle plays, the corner 3-pointers, and the heart with which he approached being a college basketball player.

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Not as physically gifted as most Division I college basketball players, he had to scrap and claw for everything that came his way at Tech.  A walk-on who eventually earned a scholarship, Benson was the epitome of being a Red Raider.

His former head coach at Tech was fond of talking about wanting his players to have a “street dog” mentality.  That certainly fit Benson to a T.

Always the first to hit the floor in pursuit of a loose ball, always willing to sacrifice his body to draw a charge, always playing every possession to the bone, Benson was as gritty of a player as Texas Tech has seen over the last five seasons and that’s what Texas Tech has always been about.

Regardless of the sport, Texas Tech athletics has been built on the idea of getting the most out of its athletes.  Never able to recruit at the level of blue-blood programs, Tech has always had to rely on players who were willing to outwork opponents both on and off the court.

That is certainly what Avery Benson did.  And that’s why my favorite memory of him will always be the play he made against Arkansas in 2019.

Facing his home state school, Benson made one of the plays of the game while battling for a loose ball.  Going completely horizontal in his pursuit of the ball, Benson flew past an Arkansas player and as fortune would have it, the ball would eventually deflect off of a Razorback at the end of the scramble to give Tech possession.

It wasn’t as memorable of a play as his two blocks against Louisville were, nor was it as talked about as his last-second alley-oop dunk in a blowout win over Baylor was in 2019.  But that play against Arkansas was the essence of what Avery Benson meant to the Red Raiders.

Benson was a culture-setter.  That’s why he was such a fan favorite.  He laid it all on the line every time he stepped on the court and he milked the absolute most out of his talent.

Sure, it will be easy to replace his statistical contributions.  But what he brought to the table as the heart and soul of Red Raider basketball was immeasurable.  That’s why Benson’s departure feels a bit different than the other departures we’ve seen this year.  It’s because Avery Benson personified what it means to be a Red Raider.