Set Nimari Burnett's impact on the actual product on the court aside for a moment and look at what Chris Beard and his staff did in the span of four months.
Texas Tech wasn't in Nimari Burnett's top 12 - TOP TWELVE! - in mid-July. Less than a month later, the Red Raiders made the cut for his top five. Fast forward three months and Burnett is a Texas Tech commitment.
This wasn't a case of Texas Tech benefiting from some sort of tie to Burnett, his high school, his AAU team or his family. This wasn't an in-state prospect choosing to stay home and play basketball for the top program in Texas. This wasn't an instance where Texas Tech had been recruiting him for years and years.
Nope.
Clearly, Burnett's relationship with Ulric Maligi gave the Red Raiders an opening that they probably would not have had otherwise. But even that typically wouldn't be enough for a program to go from outside the top 12 to a finalist in a month.
This is about Beard and what he has built in Lubbock in such a short amount of time. This is about playing for a national championship seven months ago. This is about 15,000-plus people packing the Spirit Arena for games against Eastern Illinois and Bethune-Cookman. This is about the Texas Tech basketball program deciding to go all-in on a prospect based in California, who's originally from Chicago, and beating out Michigan, Oregon, Louisville and countless others in the span of four months.
Beard just slapped his wallet down on the table and told the rest of college basketball what exactly they're dealing with.
Texas Tech wasn't in Nimari Burnett's top 12 - TOP TWELVE! - in mid-July. Less than a month later, the Red Raiders made the cut for his top five. Fast forward three months and Burnett is a Texas Tech commitment.
This wasn't a case of Texas Tech benefiting from some sort of tie to Burnett, his high school, his AAU team or his family. This wasn't an in-state prospect choosing to stay home and play basketball for the top program in Texas. This wasn't an instance where Texas Tech had been recruiting him for years and years.
Nope.
Clearly, Burnett's relationship with Ulric Maligi gave the Red Raiders an opening that they probably would not have had otherwise. But even that typically wouldn't be enough for a program to go from outside the top 12 to a finalist in a month.
This is about Beard and what he has built in Lubbock in such a short amount of time. This is about playing for a national championship seven months ago. This is about 15,000-plus people packing the Spirit Arena for games against Eastern Illinois and Bethune-Cookman. This is about the Texas Tech basketball program deciding to go all-in on a prospect based in California, who's originally from Chicago, and beating out Michigan, Oregon, Louisville and countless others in the span of four months.
Beard just slapped his wallet down on the table and told the rest of college basketball what exactly they're dealing with.
