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 the 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 press release written by Texas Tech.
There are allegations Adams spit on a player, too, although that one reads more like hyperbole.
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.
Adams will likely be the second Big 12 men’s basketball coach to be fired this year over off-the-court incidents; the first is Adams’ former boss at Tech, Chris Beard. Beard was fired by Texas after he allegedly assaulted his fiance late last year.
Tech has not named an interim coach for its next game, against West Virginia on March 8 in Kansas City in the first round of the Big 12 tournament.
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.
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.
How he remains in his position despite a run of high profile coaching departures is ... amazing? Astounding? Not easy? Complicated?
Every word fits.
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. He didn’t like Lubbock, or Tech, and only used Tech so he could coach football again on a high level.
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, Davis Webb and Patrick Mahomes, Kingsbury never could assemble a winner. He was dumped after the 2018 season.
His replacement was Matt Wells. Despite being a decent guy, he never fit Lubbock and he 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, once the pride of the entire school, has employed four different head coaches since Marsha Sharp retired in 2006.
In Aug. of 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 men’s coaching job. He lasted three seasons before he was gone.
In 2011, Tech landed the perfect coach, Billy Gillespie. That perfection lasted one season after he resigned amid allegations of secondary-NCAA violations, mistreatment of players, and exceeding NCAA practice time limits.
Gillispie resigned citing health concerns.
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. Shortly after leading the Red Raiders to its only NCAA tournament appearance in his three-year tenure, he resigned to accept the head coaching position at Memphis.
Smith was replaced by former Knight assistant, Chris Beard.
Beard was the ideal coach for Lubbock, and this era of college basketball.
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 to become the head coach at 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.
Tech people want people who want to be in Lubbock, and who will stay. Adams wasn’t going to leave Lubbock for anything other than retirement.
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.
After the team dropped two of its three games at the Maui Invitational in November the team was going bad. The Red Raiders have played a slew of close Big 12 games, but are ninth in the league.
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.
