Chris Beard leaves Texas Tech to become head coach in Texas, multiple reports show

Chris Beard is heading to Texas, according to multiple reports.

WatchStadium.com’s Jeff Goodman was the first to announce Thursday morning that Beard was leaving Texas Tech, where he had spent the past five years. Also on Thursday, Beard’s buyout at Tech if he left for another Big 12 school rose from $ 5 million to $ 4 million. A Texas Tech official has confirmed Beard’s departure for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

Landing the Texas men’s basketball job can be the easy part for Beard. He was clearly the first choice of the school and their fans even before Shaka Smart left for Marquette. Now it seems to be official. The conditions were not immediately available.

Beard was the fourth highest-paid college basketball coach in the country, at $ 4.7 million, according to the USA Today database. Now whatever Beard needs to do to satisfy all the optimism and goodwill surrounding his return to Austin, where he frequented Texas and was a student assistant under Tom Penders at the time. And yes, Texas would love the same performance Beard put together at Tech in five seasons – including a National Final, another trip to the Elite Eight, and a 9-3 record in three NCAA appearances. Or at least an NCAA tournament win or two or three.

Do not laugh.

Texas’ last victory in the NCAA came in 2014 at the end of the Rick Barnes era against Arizona State. The only other Big 12 schools with long NCAA victory droughts are TCU and Oklahoma State.

Along the way, if Beard can generate excitement and draw fans to the new Moody Center which opens for the 2022-23 season, that would help, too.

Can Beard succeed where Smart could not? His background indicates he has been a consistent winner throughout a nomadic career with stops at Fort Scott Community College, Seminole State College, American Basketball Association Second Coming, McMurry College, Angelo State and Little Rock. In between those stops, there were 10 years as an assistant under Bob Knight, then Pat Knight at Texas Tech from 2001 to 2011. He returned to Tech in 2016 after less than three weeks at UNLV and took the Reds. Raiders to Elite Eight a year later, further than the school had ever advanced. The following season, Tech lost in overtime to Virginia in the National Championship game.

His staples throughout have been a knight’s movement attack, a tenacious defense that bottlenecks the midfield and massive effort from his players. It’s not necessarily an exciting basketball, but it has been very effective.

Beard has become arguably Lubbock’s most popular figure, both with his victories and his folk way. He’s known to riff on a variety of foods, with late-night Whataburger meals being a particular favorite. Companies were even offering beardless food and other perks this week if he stayed. It was not enough. And now, the athletic director of technology Kirby Hocutt faces his own research to keep the program high.

+++

Find more college coverage in The Dallas Morning News here.