North Texas Coach Lands Huge New Job Day After NIT Win
The Mean Green won the NIT on Thursday, but lost their coach the next day.
Texas Tech is hiring North Texas head coach Grant McCasland to be their new men’s basketball coach, the team announced on Twitter Friday.
McCasland is coming off a season where he led North Texas to a 31–7 record and an NIT championship on Thursday. In six seasons with the Mean Green, McCasland recorded a 155–77 record and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021, when North Texas upset Purdue as a No. 13 seed in the first round.
Prior to joining North Texas, McCasland was an assistant at Baylor and a head coach for one year at Arkansas State. He now joins Kansas State’s Jerome Tang as former Baylor assistants to take head coaching jobs elsewhere in the Big 12.
Jeff Goodman reports North Texas is promoting assistant Ross Hodge to replace McCasland.
SOURCES: Grant McCasland is headed to Lubbock.
— Texas Tech Basketball (@TexasTechMBB) March 31, 2023
The source: pic.twitter.com/fuOaubcJu0
Texas Tech is looking for a head coach to replace Mark Adams, who stepped down following two years with the program. The Red Raiders suspended Adams in early March after Adams made a “racially insensitive comment” to a player. The school investigated Adams, and he voluntarily stepped down a week later after Jeff Goodman reported a “significant number” of players would not return to the program if Adams came back from his suspension.
A year after winning 27 games, earning a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament and making the Sweet Sixteen, Texas Tech took a major step back this past year. The Red Raiders finished the season with a 16–16 record, 5–13 in conference, and missed the Big Dance for the first time since 2017.