Texas Tech held their media day yesterday and there’s nothing on YouTube yet and when I clicked on the link to the official site and my virus protection blocked three potential threats, so I won’t be pointing you in that direction.
RRS’s Will McKay has the most extensive recap and if you want to be caught up, read this. Here’s head coach Chris Beard on his team:
“I think we’ve got a unique team, and I think it could end up being a part of our identity. It’s one of the cool parts of our story. This year in our rotation, it’s going to be all juniors and seniors, and three of these seniors are grad transfers. Many of these juniors have real game experience. I talk to the guys all the time about how there’s no relationship between age and winning. If there was, we’d just go out and recruit the oldest guys in the country, right? But what I think there can be is a relationship between maturity and experience and winning, so we’ve been talking to our guys a lot about let’s not hang our hat on the fact that we’re older, but let’s do talk about and embrace this identity of being mature, that we’ve been through some wars. There shouldn’t be a lot of ups and downs with this team. We should be level headed and experience. Now, we’re a new team playing together, but we do have a lot of individual experience.”
LAJ’s Krista Pirtle recaps the day and writes about how Texas Tech does have one of the oldest basketball teams in the NCAA and the season tickets sold. Additionally, head coach Chris Beard talks about the rotation, where Beard thinks he’ll play 12 guys:
“All these guys are juniors and seniors and all are experienced basketball players,” Beard said. “That’s a great situation to be in to have to answer questions like this this time of year.”
That large number hasn’t affected the chemistry of this team or the ego of any one Red Raider.
They’re all playing for Texas Tech with one common goal in mind.
“There’s a level of unselfishness you can feel every day,” Beard said. “These guys have come together to win.”
DT’s Diego Gaytan also recaps the day and if you see the term “4:1” it’s about the team improving their toughness:
Early on into the conference portion of its schedule, Tech struggled in the perimeter at preventing three pointers, which hurt the team in five games defined by single digits. After its opponents averaged nearly eight three-pointers at a rate of .356, the team has taken a philosophy defined by the mantra “4:1.”
“Four, that’s the mental, and the one is the physical,” junior guard Keenan Evans said. “You have to be more mentally tough then you are going to be physically tough.”
Under Beard, much of the team’s attention rests on bettering itself when it does not have the ball. Still not far into practice, Beard said he believes assistant coach Mark Adams has a successful plan to address the team’s defensive needs, but as of now, the team still needs time to hone its defense.
“Our defense doesn’t look very good today in practice, but most coaches would tell you that this time of year,” Beard said. “At the end of the day I have a lot of faith and confidence in our players, in myself, our coaching staff and specifically Mark Adams.”
Of all things, WRGB in Albany has quotes hometown player Shadell Millinghaus, has a few quotes from the junior college tansfer:
“Everybody on this roster is good,” said Millinghaus. “So we’re all just going to compete for minutes. But at the end of the day I feel like, as players, we really don’t care about minutes. We just want to win.”
I didn’t have the chance to post the breakfast video yesterday, but it’s good and definitely worth your time.
Behind the scenes look at the @lubbockonline photoshoot from media day #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/c4Y1lmQNm5
— TexasTech Basketball (@TexasTechMBB) October 19, 2016
. @CoachBeardTTU is taking Anthony Livingston, Keenan Evans, Aaron Ross and Zach Smith with him to KC. https://t.co/jef92cPaJl
— Chris Level (@ChrisLevel) October 19, 2016