Texas Tech coaching candidates: Kellen Sampson, Grant McCasland lead the list
Marks Adams is out after two years, thanks to his own actions. But the Red Raiders will have plenty of intriguing options to replace him.
theathletic.com
Not used to seeing fairly high praise towards our program, but the Athletic really does a fair job of portraying how great of a job this is
The last 24 months have been a rough go for Texas Tech men’s basketball faithful.
The who engendered almost cult-like fanaticism committed the ultimate betrayal, taking a job in Austin at the first opportunity. The next coach was deemed the genius architect behind all the success, anyway, and the program went from ranked in the top 10 to calamity in less than two seasons.
Everyone in Lubbock was on a cloud for a while there, and then everyone fell off and landed on a pile of thumbtacks.
With the resignation of Mark Adams on Wednesday and the imminent reshuffling of the Big 12 to boot, the priority for Texas Tech’s decision-makers probably should be stability. And, given the circumstances of Adams’ departure, the capacity to heal some wounds and build relationships the way a basketball coach in 2023 has to. The upshot: All the recent turmoil doesn’t change the fact that it is a place where the right coach can win consistently. It shouldn’t be terribly difficult to find a quality option with a plan to get the thing back on the rails.
Job evaluation
Walk into the Womble Basketball Center, find your way to a gym and there they are: inconceivably massive video screens covering the entire upper wall on one side of the space. It’s not the only tricked-out part of the building, but it’s the most indicative: The $31 million facility is about as lavish as it gets in college basketball.So the next Texas Tech men’s head coach walks into a resourced-enough gig. The school reported $8.89 million in spending on men’s basketball in 2020-21, per U.S. Department of Education data, which put it sixth in the Big 12 – not ideal, but not prohibitive to success. More anecdotally, games at United Supermarkets Arena border on spectacle when things are going good, an invaluable potential advantage in the country’s most demanding league.
Nor does Texas Tech lag behind in the emerging world of NIL deals. The Matador Club, a non-profit collective, and Lubbock-based marketing agency Level 13 have extended $25,000 deals to dozens of Red Raiders athletes. In all, it’s a job located in a state with arguably the best high school talent in the country, with some perks to offer said talent.
Any perceived drawbacks are more or less uncontrollable. The Big 12 is going to be very good. It is going to be hard to win in the league, regardless of resource level. The talent level must remain consistently high, which means convincing players to sign up for a market that isn’t the flashiest around.
It requires hyper-diligence in recruiting; get a player to campus and show them the bells and whistles, and here’s guessing Texas Tech’s chances with that player increase. But a coach has to be charismatic and persistent enough to make those visits happen.
The next Texas Tech coach will not lack for fan support or top-level facilities. (Michael C. Johnson / USA Today)
Call list
(in alphabetical order)John Jakus, Baylor associate head coach. He’s well-respected in coaching circles and has the resounding success of Jerome Tang’s first year at Kansas State to point to as reason to give a career assistant the head coaching job. Time spent at Gonzaga doesn’t hurt, either. The guy has seen the inner workings of two premier organizations of the past few seasons.
Andy Kennedy, UAB head coach. The 54-year-old Kennedy has been looking for a chance to return to the power-conference level and got deep into the mix with a couple openings in the 2022 carousel. Kennedy led the Blazers to the NCAA Tournament in 2022 and to a third-place regular-season finish in Conference USA this season.
Cuonzo Martin, former Missouri head coach.It’s been a mixed bag for the 51-year-old during four head coaching stops. Success at Missouri State and Cal. Not so much at Tennessee. One game over .500 and two NCAA Tournament bids in five seasons at Missouri. At minimum, Martin would want the program to play with an edge, which would sell in Lubbock.
Grant McCasland, North Texas head coach.The first name that has come up in pretty much any discussion about the job. He has basketball life spent in Texas, the 66.8 winning percentage in six years at North Texas and, for what it’s worth, a couple long-ago years spent as a director of operations with Texas Tech. Bringing some of Scott Drew’s love-and-happiness-for-all vibe also would be helpful, given what prompted the job opening.
Paul Mills, Oral Roberts head coach. It would be plucking another coach from the Baylor tree. It would also be good timing on Mills’ end, as this Oral Roberts team is his best yet and Max Abmas can’t stick around for yet another year.
Al Pinkins, Texas Tech assistant coach. On his second run with the Red Raiders — he was on the staff when the program reached the Elite Eight in 2018 — Pinkins may be the internally preferred candidate among players, at least. We’ll see how much of a voice they’re given in the process. Pinkins served as Florida’s interim head coach last spring after Mike White decamped for Georgia.
Kellen Sampson, Houston assistant coach. Is there a clear path of succession at Houston from Kelvin Sampson to his son? Or is that just an assumption everyone makes, and there are no guarantees? Even though it’s a soon-to-be Big 12 rival of his father’s program, it’s a pretty good situation for a first head coaching gig. And Sampson understands personal investment with players comes first, and the demands come only after that.
Rodney Terry, Texas acting head coach. Stay with us here. It may be that Terry isn’t even on the market or that his ties to Chris Beard, limited as they are, make this a hard sell in Lubbock. But if everyone is right about Terry’s recruiting chops, that energy and his origin story as a high school coach align with the profile of Joey McGuire, Kirby Hocutt’s latest football hire. In fact, you could make an objective argument that Texas Tech is a better job for Terry than Texas is.
