Texas Tech basketball: Preseason questions about the 2023-24 Red Raiders

To say that it’s a new era for the Texas Tech basketball program is a bit of an understatement.  That’s because the arrival of new head coach Grant McCasland signals the official end to the Chris Beard/Mark Adams run in Lubbock.

There is no question that Beard and Adams, who arrived together when Beard was hired to lead the program in 2016, took the Red Raiders to unprecedented heights over the past seven seasons.  Under Beard, Tech reached the 2018 Elite Eight and the 2019 National Championship game while Adams guided the team to the 2022 Sweet 16.

To put that run in perspective, the program has advanced to the Sweet 16 or farther only seven times in its history and three of those instances came with Beard or Adams leading the way.  However, not everything was sunshine and rainbows inside the program in recent years.

Following the run to the 2019 title game, Beard became tougher to deal with off the court and he rubbed people the wrong way up until his abrupt and controversial departure to take over at Texas.  Adams was handed the reins in 2021 in the hopes that Beard’s right-hand man would be able to maintain the success that he had helped the program achieve during Beard’s tenure while being more of a calming influence.

Early on, it appeared that Adams would do just that.  He led Tech to the 2022 Sweet 16 in just his first season on the job as Red Raiders everywhere believed that the mid-60s-aged first-time major-conference program head coach was the perfect man to lead his alma mater forward after the heartbreak of Beard’s exodus.

Unfortunately, the Adams that Tech thought it was getting turned out not to be who the real man was.  Allowing his personal life to influence how he approached his job duties in 2022-23, the program completely fell apart in Adams’ second season and before the Big 12 Tournament, Tech would negotiate his resignation following allegations of player mistreatment.

After missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017, the program needed a reboot.  It needed to get completely away from anything and anyone associated with the Beard/Adams era and it needed an earnest straight shooter to lead the way.

That’s what McCasland seems to be.  Though he had a brief tenure as a member of the Texas Tech basketball staff under James Dicky in 1999-2000, he has cut his teeth as a coach outside of the Tech galaxy and that’s a good thing given that a fresh perspective was needed to clean up the mess that Adams and Beard created.

Still, as with any coaching change, there are plenty of unknowns about how the McCasland hire will pan out.  There are never any guarantees when a new person takes over a program and McCasland is far from a proven commodity at the highest levels of the sport.

In many ways, this could be one of the more fascinating seasons of Texas Tech basketball.  This is the first person outside of the Beard coaching tree to lead the program in the era of the transfer portal and N.I.L. meaning that no first-year Texas Tech coach has ever had a greater opportunity to win big and win early.  However, that also means that the pressure on McCasland to hit the ground running will be higher than it has been on any other man to lead the Red Raiders.

Of course, there are unknowns about this team, as well as its head coach.  Fortunately, we will soon start to get some answers.  But for now, let’s take a look at the pressing concerns that exist for the Red Raiders as the season rapidly draws near.