The Texas Tech Red Raiders basketball program competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) Division I, representing Texas Tech University in the Big 12 Conference.[1] The program has had 17 head coaches since it began play during the 1925–26 NCAA men's basketball season.[2]

Texas Tech (then known as Texas Technological College) basketball team was formerly named the "Matadors" from 1925 to 1936, to reflect the influence of the Spanish Renaissance architecture on campus.[3] The Matadors' first head coach, Grady Higginbotham, started and led the program until Victor Payne replaced him after two seasons. In 1932, Texas Tech was admitted to the Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association, also known as the Border Conference. In the team's first season of conference play, Texas Tech's fourth head coach, Dell Morgan, went undefeated, winning the first of three consecutive Border Conference championships. At the beginning of the 1937–38 season, Texas Tech's short-lived Matadors moniker was replaced officially with "Red Raiders", the nickname the team has today.[3] Texas Tech received their first postseason bid in 1942 to the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (NAIA) tournament during Berl Huffman's final season with the team in his first term as head coach. Huffman's successor, Polk Robison, led Texas Tech to their first NCAA tournament appearance in 1956, the same year Robison began a three-year conference championship winning streak. Before withdrawing from the Border Conference in 1956, the Red Raiders won five conference championships and one co-championship.

In 1957, Texas Tech was admitted to the Southwest Conference (SWC), in which it experienced similar success as it had in the Border Conference. In the regular season, the Red Raiders won four conference championships and three conference co-championships. At the end of the 1976 regular season, the SWC began an annual conference tournament known as the SWC Classic.[2] Texas Tech won five SWC Classic titles in their six appearances in the conference tournament championship game; three under Gerald Myers and two under James Dickey. The university remained in the SWC until the conference ceased operations in 1996, when Dickey's 1995–96 team ended the season ranked eighth in both the Associated Press Poll and Coaches' Poll and won the conference's final regular season and SWC Classic titles.[4] Following the dissolution of the SWC, the university became a charter member in the South Division of the Big 12 Conference. Since joining the Big 12 Conference, the Red Raiders did not receive a bid to postseason play until 2002, when Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight was hired. During Knight's six-year tenure, Texas Tech received five postseason bids, participating in four NCAA tournaments and one National Invitation Tournament (NIT). The Red Raiders won the third place playoff in the 2003 NIT tournament, the farthest a Red Raiders men's basketball team has advanced in postseason play. During the 2007–08 season, Bob Knight resigned as head coach and his son, then assistant head coach, Pat Knight became Texas Tech's 13th head coach. In the 2009-10 season, Pat Knight led the Red Raiders to the (NIT) where they were defeated in the quarterfinals. After failing to make the NCAA tournament, and compiling a 16-42 Big 12 Conference record over his three and a half seasons as head coach, Texas Tech terminated Pat Knight's position has head coach. On March 20, 2011, Texas Tech hired Billy Clyde Gillispie, former head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats, Texas A&M Aggies, and UTEP Miners, as the 14th head coach of the Texas Tech men's basketball program.[5]

Key

Coaches

Statistics correct as of the end of the 2022–23 NCAA Division I men's basketball season
# Name Season(s) GC OW OL O% CW CL C% PW PL RCs TCs Awards
1 Grady Higginbotham 1925–1927 32 14 18 .438 — — — — — — — —
2 Victor Payne 1927–1930 52 31 21 .596 — — — — — — — —
3 W. L. Golightly 1930–1931 20 11 9 .550 — — — — — — — —
4 Dell Morgan 1931–1934 69 42 27 .550 15 1 .938 — — 2 — —
5 Virgil Ballard 1934–1935 24 14 10 .583 9 1 .900 — — 1 — —
6 Berl Huffman 1935–1942, 1946–1947 188 116 72 .617 56 34 .622 1 1 0 — —
7 Polk Robison 1943–1946, 1947–1961 443 248 195 .560 141 82 .632 2 4 4 — Border (1954)[7]
8 Gene Gibson 1961–1969 192 101 91 .526 66 46 .589 1 1 2 — —
9 Bob Bass 1969–1970 24 14 10 .583 8 6 .571 — — 0 — —
10 Gerald Myers 1970–1991 587 326 261 .555 180 142 .559 1 5 2 3 SWC (5x)[8]
11 James Dickey 1991–2001 287 164 123 .571 75 75 .500 2 3 2 2 SWC (1992, 1996)[9]
12 Bob Knight† 2001–2008 220 138 82 .627 53 49 .520 7 5 0 0 NCHOF (2006)[10]
13 Pat Knight 2008–2011 111 50 61 .450 16 42 .276 2 1 0 0 —
14 Billy Gillispie 2011–2012 31 8 23 .258 1 17 .056 0 0 0 0 —
15 Chris Walker 2012–2013 31 11 20 .355 3 15 .167 0 0 0 0 —
16 Tubby Smith 2013–2016 96 46 50 .479 18 36 .333 0 1 0 0 Big 12 (2016)
17 Chris Beard[11][12] 2016–2021 105 112 55 .671 49 40 .551 7 1 1 0 —
18 Mark Adams 2021–2023 68 43 25 .632 17 19 .472 0 0 0 0 —
19 Grant McCasland 2023–Present 23 17 6 .739 6 4 .600 0 0 0 0 —

Notes

  1. ^ A running total of the number of head coaches, thus, any coach who have two or more separate terms as head coach is only counted once.
  2. ^ Texas Tech was not in an athletic conference from the 1925 through 1931, 1939 through 1941, the 1943–44 season, and the 1956–57 season.[2]
  3. ^ The Border Conference did not hold a conference tournament. The Southwest Conference did not hold their conference tournament until the 1975–76 season.[6]
  4. ^ Postseason wins and losses include tournament games played in the National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball (now National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics), National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and National Invitation Tournament (NIT).

References

General
Specific
  1. ^ "2009–10 Big 12 Men's Basketball Media Guide" (PDF). Big 12 Conference. Retrieved 2010-01-10.
  2. ^ a b c "2009–10 Texas Tech Red Raiders Basketball Media Guide" (PDF). Texas Tech University. Retrieved 2010-01-04.[permanent dead link]
  3. ^ a b Clark, Kyle; Siegrist, Nikki (2003-03-13). "Making Matadors: Spanish style architecture inspires Tech's first mascot". The Daily Toreador. Archived from the original on September 26, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-15.
  4. ^ "A Look Back at the Southwest Conference". Texas Almanac. Retrieved 2018-07-04.
  5. ^ Linehan, Courtney (2011-03-20). "Texas Tech hires Billy Gillispie as men's basketball coach". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
  6. ^ "Traditions". Texas Tech University. Archived from the original on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
  7. ^ Andrews, Ruth Horn (1956). The First Thirty Years: a History of Texas Technological College. Lubbock, Texas: The Texas Tech Press. p. 309.
  8. ^ "Tech alumni honored for their services". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. 1999-10-16. Archived from the original on 2011-07-14. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
  9. ^ "James Dickey Introduced as Houston Men's Basketball Head Coach". Conference USA. 2008-04-01. Archived from the original on 2012-02-26. Retrieved 2010-04-18.
  10. ^ "College Basketball Experience". National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 2010-08-11. Retrieved 2010-05-03.
  11. ^ "Chris Beard Coaching Record". College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com. Retrieved 2019-03-31.
  12. ^ "Men's Basketball". Texas Tech University Athletics. Retrieved 2019-03-31.

Categories