There was some big news yesterday, but maybe not as significant as it appears. Texas Tech guard Mac McClung announced on Twitter that he would remove his name from the transfer portal, but (and this is big) he’s keeping his name in the NBA draft.

Just didn’t feel right in my heart. Whatever decision I make in the near future with the NBA process , I will always want to be apart of Red Raider Nation. https://t.co/4OV6zFWGMb

— mac mcclung (@McclungMac) April 22, 2021

This is a big deal in that McClung is returning, and I’ll see it for the good that it is, but there are two things. I could have sworn when I read the new NCAA legislation regarding the one-time transfer was that if you’ve already had the one-time transfer, you essentially don’t get another bite of the apple. So that would mean that McClung would have to sit out a year pretty much no matter what, he received the immediate waiver last year so there’s almost no opportunity for him to play immediately for another institution. That means that McClung’s return may be based on that rather than really wanting to play somewhere else. We’ll probably never know.

The other item that’s significant is that McClung is still in the NBA draft pool and has until mid-July, July 19th to be exact, to make a decision. That really puts Texas Tech in a bad spot because they have two guys, McClung and Terrence Shannon, Jr., who will be mulling their options until mid-summer. now, I don’t expect all 1,400 transfers to be snapped up before then, but I think a lot of the better ones will certainly take sure spots over than having to wait until the summer.

It just puts Texas Tech in a bit of a bind. And if I had to guess, Shannon has pretty well made up his decision and will likely stay in the draft, but I don’t have any idea. He’s a fringe first-rounder, much like Jahmi’us Ramsey was last year.

Andy Wittry’s Out of Bounds is a substack (this is a publishing platform) newsletter regarding open records requests on college athletics. I had never heard of it before, but it’s for sure interesting. In any event, Wittry obtained emails and documents through an open records request from Texas Tech and there’s a ton there, including a ton of emails from people who emailed their displeasure at the Chris Beard situation and there’s also still emails from fans (maybe your email is included if you sent one!) regarding Art Briles. I encourage you to read the whole thing if you haven’t already clicked over to read.

These are all fine, but the email that caught my attention is this one where Texas Tech Chairman of the Board of Regents sent an email to Chancellor Tedd Mitchell:

On the evening of April 1, J. Michael Lewis, who was elected chairman of the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents in December 2020, sent an email that included a link to the official University of Texas press release that announced the hiring of Beard.

Texas Tech University System Chancellor Dr. Tedd Mitchell responded to the email the next morning, “Chairman – It’s been an emotional week for everyone. Chris Beard’s callous treatment of [Texas Tech University President Dr.] Lawrence [Schovanec], Kirby and [Board of Regents member] Dusty [Womble], only confirms the serious misgivings many (including me) have had about his character for quite some time. I believe our family will be better off in the long run for his departure.”

Out of Bounds reached out to a Texas Tech University System spokesman and a University of Texas associate athletics director for communications to offer each school the opportunity to comment on Mitchell’s email.

In a statement provided to Out of Bounds, Mitchell said, “I join President Lawrence Schovanec, Director of Athletics Kirby Hocutt and Red Raider Nation in expressing our shared excitement for Mark Adams to lead Texas Tech’s men’s basketball program. We are confident Coach Adams will continue the successes of this program and build an even stronger future for our student-athletes on and off the court.”

The emphasis is mine and that’s pretty telling of maybe a lot of things. I think that people are human and people’s feelings were hurt, but from this side of the fence, the feeling is that Beard maybe just rebuffed the entire administration and the “serious misgivings” about Beard’s character is a bit of a revelation. We’re left to wonder what those character issues are and I’ll let your imagination run rampant, but maybe the other part of the equation is that Beard was reading the room and his act, or demands, or whatever we want to call it, had worn thin at Texas Tech.

The honeymoon had worn apparently worn and maybe Beard leaving and hiring Mark Adams is the best case scenario for everyone involved.