Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland spoke with the media for the first time this offseason, the first time since completing his coaching staff and 2023-24 roster. This came the day after Tech announced the Red Raiders 2023-24 non-conference schedule.
McCasland echoed that this schedule, the toughest for Texas Tech since the Chris Beard era, will provide a challenge for the Red Raiders while giving them a chance to grow into a team that can make it back to March.
“We got our schedule released and feel like we got some good home games, some tough neutral site games that I think will prepare us for Big 12 play,” McCasland said. “It was it was a journey, we've got a couple of teams that played in the NCAA tournament that are coming here to play and, you know, we wanted to play a schedule that we felt like really would challenge us but would also give us an opportunity to grow as a team.”
The Red Raiders quality home games come against San Jose State who finished No. 97 in KenPom last season along with the new look Sam Houston & Oral Roberts programs.
The real challenges for Tech on this schedule come in the neutral site games, headlined by the appearance in the multi-team event in the Bahamas, the Battle 4 Atlantis, where Tech will see Villanova and has the chance to see a couple power programs in North Carolina and Arkansas.
“I think if you look across our non-conference schedule, you know everyone looks for that MTE opportunity,” McCasland said. “To get paired with Villanova, I have a ton of respect for them.”
McCasland spoke about the challenges that a non-equal Big 12 schedule will bring to the conference, where the Red Raiders drew Baylor, UCF, Oklahoma St., TCU & Texas for home and away. Tech will also host BYU, Cincinnati, Kansas & Kansas St while travelling to Iowa State, Houston, Oklahoma & West Virginia.
“It'll be interesting to see the mix,” McCasland said. “It’ll be the first time that it’ll be unbalanced. I think that'll be unique. It'll make an impact on the league and how it finishes.”
The initial coaching staff for McCasland was completed with the hires of Dave Smart and Kellen Buffington, two guys that McCasland echoed his excitement to have around the program.
“Yeah, you can't look at coach Smart’s winning percentage and not respect the fact that he's figured it out,” McCasland said. “You can tell he’s been a part of winning at a high level because he has high expectations, but he's got a lot of a lot of humility.”
Buffington, the AAU guru from the metroplex, should add some much-needed connections for the Red Raiders in recruiting and McCasland echoed that strength.
“Yeah, Kellen Buffington is a remarkable guy. I mean if you got to go hang out with him, you'd love him,” McCasland said. “He’s just got real relationships with people that I think there's genuine respect. But he also has tremendous experience of seeing the development and growth of a lot of players, a unique skill of being able to see who translates and how that translates into getting better.”
McCasland echoed confidence in his roster for the upcoming season, saying that he has a lot of faith in the additions he made later in the transfer portal cycle in WVU’s Joe Toussaint and ASU’s Devan Cambridge.
“That's a credit to all of the love from Red Raider Nation honestly, and just the love that people have for us because Joe played here, had a pretty good game, but he just remembers the atmosphere and the energy in the building,” McCasland said. “The relationship that Devan had with Warren that was obviously helpful. When we looked at our roster, two areas that we didn't have a lot of was physicality with experience and both those guys bring that.”
Another transfer on this team is Nevada’s Darrion Williams who McCasland has really high hopes for after his Freshman of the Year season in the Mountain West.
“I think that's probably the guy that will surprise people the most in our league,” McCasland said. “He really knows how to play basketball and if you look at his rebounding numbers, they're already elite. So, it's a three to one assist to turnover, but he led Nevada rebounding as a freshman and that’s hard to do.”
McCasland echoed that he was confident in the process and was glad to put together a complete staff and roster, as he expected to do so in the spring.
“I think it's funny. It's not ever as fast as people want. That's probably where we're at right now. Like everybody wants it done now,” McCasland said. “I know for many people it felt like that's what it was like for us in the spring when we got hired. People were asking ‘why don’t we have any players, why don’t we have staff,’ I think you get to the end, and you can see that there's some freedom going with it.”
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