Via RedRaiderSports’ Aaron Dickens, Texas Tech assistant coach Al Pinkins has left for Florida and will be named assistant head coach for the Gators. Florida had attempted to hire Pinkins earlier in the spring, but Pinkins had decided to stay, but with another assistant coach leaving, Florida obviously upped the ante and retained Pinkins’ services.

Pinkins was a terrific assistant and largely responsible for a handful of recruits, including St. John’s transfer Tariq Owens and Khavon Moore. I’m not sure where Beard will turn, my initial gut was that Beard would go outside the program to replace Pinkins, but I suppose that he could also replace Pinkins with Sean Sutton, who is a huge part of the Texas Tech Basketball Machine.

In other news, 2018 guard Isaac Likekeke was choosing between UTEP, Oklahoma State and Texas Tech and ended up choosing the Cowboys yesterday (Twitter). OSU was the favorite, so much so that I didn’t prepare a post just in case he choose Texas Tech as Oklahoma State was heavily favored. Texas Tech still has some irons in the fire, including the hopeful transfer of South Dakota guard Matt Mooney and another 2018 guard, Keonte Kennedy, who is from the Austin area and originally committed to Xavier before backing out of that commitment.