Do I know what’s happening? No. Thankfully, you don’t come here for the insight or breaking news. That’s left to the insiders and that’s not me.
The best news is that we essentially know about the same that we knew before, which is that it is being reported that Chris Beard is a candidate for the Texas position. I know that there is some doubt that he is even a candidate and neither party, Texas or Beard, is going to acknowledge that he is a candidate. That’s now really how these things work.
Regardless, the thought is that given that Texas wants win and no one has won more than Beard in the state of Texas. I haven’t researched that statement, but I think it is a given.
I’d also tell you that the first call is likely to Beard. I mentioned on Saturday that I thought that Texas Tech would open up their wallets to keep Beard in Lubbock and I absolutely believe that to be true. I would also state that Austin American Statesman’s Kirk Bohl’s is the Don Williams of the Austin media. I know a lot of you have a preconceived thought about Bohls, but Bohls’ son is a graduate of Texas Tech and was the mascot, Raider Red, for a couple of years, so he spent some of his money at Texas Tech in some way and I’ve not viewed him as any sort of bad guy. In any event, this was two of his tweets on Sunday:
Royal Ivey is a serious candidate for the Texas job, said a source with knowledge of the search for a successor to Shaka Smart. “He has a lot of support. He loves the university and has NBA experience.”
— Kirk Bohls (@kbohls) March 29, 2021
The Texas source also said Texas Tech coach Chris Beard is also still being courted. Is he interested? “No indications otherwise.”
— Kirk Bohls (@kbohls) March 29, 2021
I think both things are true. I think that Ivey seems like Juwan Howard 2.0, i.e. hiring an NBA guy with no college experience and surround him with great college coaches and recruiters. I also think that the way that Bohls crafted the tweet about Beard, he doesn’t know any reason as to why Beard isn’t a candidate isn’t really confirmation either.
So, hold onto your butts. It is my understanding that Chris Beard’s buyout to leave to another Big 12 program goes down on April 1st to $4 million. So it would be that plus whatever Beard’s salary is to leave, which isn’t really a hinderance to Texas. My guess is that we have another day or two of hand-wringing before we get an answer from Beard. I don’t know if the note about the buyout lowering to $4 million on Thursday is an important point to Texas, but $2 million is still $2 million.