Red Raiders dealing with yet another coaching mess
Mark Adams’ tenure as Texas Tech’s men’s basketball coach is all but over.
Tech is investigating allegations against the now-suspended coach, and sources said that retaining Adams looks unlikely.
Adams was suspended by the school after administrators learned that he was “encouraging the student-athlete to be more receptive to coaching and referenced Bible verses about workers, teachers, parents and slaves serving their masters.”
That’s according to a news release written by Texas Tech.
That Texas Tech would issue such details is a great indication it wants to fire Adams with cause. This relationship is likely now down to the lawyers.
Tech named second-year assistant Corey Williams as its interim coach Monday night for the Big 12 Tournament opener against West Virginia on Wednesday in Kansas City.
Despite his charming backstory, Adams always felt like a reach of a hire, and whatever momentum he generated from his first season evaporated months ago. The Red Raiders are 16-15 and 5-13 in conference play.
For whatever the reason, Texas Tech has had a terrible run of coaching departures that range from bad hires to just bad breaks. Adams was both.
The man overseeing all of this remains athletic director Kirby Hocutt, who has been in his position since 2011.
Starting with the firing of football coach Mike Leach in 2009, few Power Five schools have hit coaching ruts like Tech.
Leach’s successor, Tommy Tuberville, famously quit after the 2012 season.
His replacement was Kliff Kingsbury. He was a Red Raider who loved Tech, Lubbock and would never leave.
Despite having the likes of Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes, Kingsbury never could assemble a winner. He was dumped after the 2018 season.
His replacement was Matt Wells, who was gone after three years.
His replacement, Joey McGuire, was 8-5 in his first year in 2022, and he looks like a solution and a fit.
The women’s basketball program has employed four different head coaches since Marsha
Sharp retired in 2006.
In August 2020, Tech fired third-year women’s basketball coach Marlene Stollings after a lengthy report was published in USA Today detailing accusations of a toxic and abusive culture in her program.
On to men’s basketball. Midway through the 2007-08 season, Bob Knight quit and installed his son, Pat, as the head coach.
Other than being Bob Knight’s son, Pat didn’t have the resume to suggest he was qualified, or ready, to take on a Power Five men’s coaching job. He lasted three seasons.
In 2011, Tech landed the perfect coach, Billy Gillespie. That perfection lasted one season after he resigned amid allegations of NCAA violations and mistreatment of players.
He was replaced by interim Chris Walker, who coached the team to a 11-20 record in 2012-13.
Walker was replaced by veteran Tubby Smith, who lasted in Lubbock through the spring of 2016.
Smith was replaced by former Knight assistant Chris Beard.
In his third season in Lubbock, he had the Red Raiders within seconds of winning the national title in 2019. The Red Raiders lost in overtime to Virginia in the title game.
Beard stayed for two more seasons before crushing the heart of every single Red Raider fan when he left for the University of Texas.
Adams is a Tech guy and a Tech grad. The problem was he had never been a major Division I coach, and he was in his mid 60s.
In his first season, the Red Raiders reached the Sweet 16 and Adams was the national coach of the year.
After that, however, there were signs this wasn’t going to last. It was a bad sign when guard Kevin McCullar transferred to Kansas.
Now Adams looks to be all but fired amid embarrassing allegations that will again put Texas Tech in the position of looking for yet another new head coach.
Some of this is a result of bad luck. Some of this is a result of bad hires.
Either way, Kirby Hocutt will survive.