Texas Tech basketball: Why 2021-22 season was a rousing success
Tech was a better team than Texas this season
It might come across as petty but that won’t stop Texas Tech basketball fans from rejoicing in the fact that the Red Raiders had a better season than the Texas Longhorns did. And that is certainly one reason why 2021-22 was a success.
On the court, the Red Raiders swept UT. They took home a 77-64 win in Lubbock in what was one of the most anticipated games of the college basketball season and they handed UT a 61-55 defeat in Austin.
What’s more, the Red Raiders advanced one round farther in the NCAA Tournament than the Horns did. Additionally, Tech went two rounds deeper in the Big 12 Tournament.
Any way you slice it, Tech was the better team and had a better season than UT and Chris Beard did. Make no mistake, that was of critical importance for this program.
Don’t forget that UT started the season ranked in the top 5 in the national polls. The belief was that Beard would work his magic in Austin and take a group of highly-touted transfers and mesh them with some key holdovers from the previous regime to form a Final Four contender.
That dream scenario for the Longhorns never came close to materializing. What’s more, Texas was rather irrelevant on the national scene by the time the season ended.
Meanwhile, Tech had the opposite story going from unranked to a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. And by having a better season than UT, the Red Raiders proved an important point.
It would be disingenuous to suggest that Beard had no role in the revitalization of Texas Tech basketball over the past five years. But it would also be foolish to believe, as so many national pundits did, that he was the sole reason for Tech’s success.
Thus, by having a better season than Beard did, Tech and Adams proved to the nation that there will be life in Lubbock after Beard. In fact, by having one of the best seasons in the program’s history in just year one of the Adams era, Tech may have signaled that life after Beard will be even more bountiful than it was during his tenure.
Ultimately, what was built on the Caprock since 2016-17 was bigger than just one man. Rather, it was a collective effort by an excellent coaching staff, some extremely talented players, and some loyal boosters who stepped up their financial commitment to the program.
But to prove to those on the outside that Tech basketball is bigger than Beard, the Red Raiders needed to be better than UT on the court and that’s what they were this past season. Now, it will be interesting to see which program receives the bigger benefit of the doubt heading into next season.