Texas Tech basketball: Trying to make sense of the Red Raiders’ woes

Mark Adams deviated from what has made him successful

In just his first year as a head coach at the major college level, Mark Adams took a team comprised of eight newcomers to the Sweet 16.  However, in his second season at the helm, the Texas Tech alum has made a number of mistakes that have caused his program to struggle.

First of all, Adams seemed to stray from what brought him most of his success as a head coach at the collegiate level. Instead of putting his defensive philosophy first when constructing his roster, he tried to bring in players with reputations as offensive players into the fold.

Last year, he had at the guard positions a pair of long and athletic 6-foot-6 players, Adonis Arms and Kevin McCullar.  Both of those players were elite on the defensive end but only average when it came to scoring the basketball.  As a result, when Tech met Duke, an elite offensive team, in the Sweet 16, Tech simply didn’t have enough firepower to match the Bluedevils.

Thus, Adams set out to try to overhaul his team’s offensive attack in the offseason.  He brought in legendary JUCO head coach Steven Green to bring a new offensive scheme to the Red Raiders.  That system would need more shooters in order to be successful so players like Isaacs, Walton, and Williams were brought on board.  Also, Adams wanted a ball-dominant point guard so he pulled De’Vion Harmon out of the portal.

The problem is that none of the new guards added to the team this year are over 6-foot-5 with the starters, Harmon and Isaacs, both being around 6-foot-2.  What’s more, none of those players have elite athleticism.  Thus, this year’s team is far less effective on the defensive end as the guards and wings are not nearly as capable of shutting down the passing lanes and smothering opposing ball handlers as previous Tech teams were.

Essentially, Adams gambled that he could teach offensive-minded players to play elite defense and that hasn’t proven to be the case.  That and combined with the decrease in the team’s athleticism has rendered this the most ineffective defensive team that Tech has had since Adams joined the program in 2016-17.

Tech is only No. 24 in the KenPom.com adjusted defensive efficiency ratings.  While that’s not awful, it is a far cry from last season when Adams had his team at No. 1 in that metric.  Thus, it is fair to wonder if Adams made a critical mistake when putting together this year’s roster. That’s because, not only have the offensive-minded players that he added been poor defensively, but some of them have also been terrible when it comes to putting points on the board as well.