The Juice: Texas Tech and the talent acquisition business
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In mid-April, when asked at his introductory press conference about his approach to recruiting at Texas Tech, Chris Beard gave what seemed at the time to be a fairly standard, boilerplate answer.
“We’re in a talent business. We are going to go anywhere and everywhere to get the best players we can to compete for championships in the Big 12 Conference.”
It wasn’t a comment that necessarily stood out. Most coaches in that setting give similar answers, much in the same way that new football coaches promise exciting and aggressive styles of play.
Yet, four months later, Beard has delivered on that statement in a big way. He and his staff have upgraded the Texas Tech basketball roster to the point where, on paper, it ranks as one of the five-best in the Big 12. That process started with the signings of JUCO All-Americans Shadell Millinghaus and Niem Stevenson, but where the Red Raiders really made waves this summer was with their addition of four Div. I transfers – Anthony Livingston (Arkansas State), Brandone Francis (Florida), Giovanni McLean (Quinnipiac) and, most recently, Tommy Hamilton IV (DePaul).
To be clear, what makes Beard’s roster upgrade stand out when compared to his head coaching peers in Lubbock is not how he did it but how quickly. Heading into the 2016-17 academic year, three of the university’s four prominent sports – football, men’s and women’s basketball – will feature a number of Div. I transfers in prominent roles.
Candi Whitaker’s Lady Raider program is perhaps the most dramatic example of this practice. Five of the 14 players listed on the team’s 2016 roster are transfers: Brielle Blaire (Virginia Tech), Larryn Brooks (Indiana), Recee’ Caldwell (UCLA), Erin DeGrate (Louisville) and Jada Terry (Texas A&M). Blaire averaged 11 minutes per game as a reserve in 2015-16. Brooks, who started 34 games as a freshman with the Hoosiers, will make her Lady Raider debut this season, as will former national top 100 recruits Caldwell and Terry. DeGrate joined the program earlier this summer and will sit the upcoming campaign.
Kliff Kingsbury’s football team has also dabbled in this form of talent acquisition. Last season, Houston transfer Emeka Okafor started several games on the offensive line after injuries sidelined Justin Murphy and Baylen Brown. This season, Texas Tech has four FBS transfers in its two-deep: Kolin Hill (Notre Dame), Ondre Pipkins (Michigan), Nic Shimonek (Iowa) and Luke Stice (Houston). Hill, Pipkins and Stice are expected to be significant contributors for a Red Raider front seven that looks to be lacking in depth and experience, while Shimonek will likely serve as the team’s backup quarterback.
The Red Raiders have two more transfers, Kaleb Hill (Boise State) and Willie Sykes (Arkansas), sitting out this season, and could potentially add former LSU wide receiver Tyron Johnson to that group in the coming days.
Suddenly, Texas Tech is Transfer U.
And that’s not a bad thing.
The transfer market is too volatile to be something that coaches can consistently rely on to be the year-to-year lifeblood of their program, but it can be a tremendous tool for teams under certain circumstances.
Whitaker inherited a Lady Raider program that was almost completely devoid of Big 12-caliber talent. It took three years, but she and her staff have transformed the roster significantly with traditional recruiting – signing legit blue-chip recruits like Japreece Dean, Arella Guirantes and Zuri Sanders – and supplementing those signings with Div. I transfers.
Kingsbury has used FBS transfers to fill critical holes on his Texas Tech football team. The Red Raiders would have likely been forced to play a true freshman offensive lineman last season had Okafor not been on the roster. The team’s current front seven on defense would be a complete disaster without Pipkins, Hill and Stice. And without Shimonek, Kingsbury would be in the unenviable position of entering the season with a true freshman backup quarterback.
Beard took over a Texas Tech basketball team with a talented core of rising juniors fresh off of a trip to the NCAA Tournament. When a handful of reserves opted leave the program in search of more playing time, Beard and his staff were able to fill in the gaps, and in the process significantly upgrade the roster, with transfers.
Time will tell how successful these moves will be for Red Raiders, but all three programs look to be much better off as a result.