Mac Engel: What may prevent Texas Tech from having another good coach poached by a 'power' name

For the second time this century there is a thread between the school in Lubbock, Texas, and the one in Bloomington, Ind.

In 2001, it was Texas Tech that hired former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight to take over the Red Raiders.

It’s 2025, and it is Indiana that will have an eye on current Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland.

For McCasland to be the top candidate at the scheduled opening at Indiana, a few others will need to say “No,” but if the Hoosiers call he will have the same impossible decision that Billy Gillispie was confronted with when he left Texas A&M for Kentucky in 2007.

IU’s situation shouldn’t make the Red Raiders “nervous,” but they should be aware.

No. 9 Texas Tech plays at TCU on Tuesday night in Fort Worth.

The Texas Tech coach Indiana should hire

Current Indiana coach Mike Woodson recently announced he will step down after the season. The risky hire backfired on a program that remains stuck in an identity crisis of their own creation.

They want to move on from Hall of Fame coach Bob Knight, who died in 2023, while clinging to a bygone era he defined.

The Hoosiers’ immediate wish list focuses around former Butler head coach, native son Brad Stevens. Stevens currently is the president of basketball operations with the Boston Celtics; it is highly doubtful he wants to return to coaching either in college, or the NBA.

With Stevens a 99.999 percent “No,” the man Indiana should hire is the ex-Texas Tech coach that the Hoosiers cannot touch.

Former Red Raiders coach Chris Beard is one of the last active branches to Bob Knight’s coaching tree; Beard was Knight’s assistant, from 2001 to 2008, at Texas Tech.

As the head coach at Tech, Beard coached the Red Raiders to within seconds of a national title, in 2019, and he’s a proven winner at the top tiers of college basketball.

However, Beard’s arrest from a domestic violence dispute with his live-in girlfriend in December of 2022 when he was the head coach at Texas will end his chances at becoming the next head coach at Indiana. Beard was fired by UT in January of 2023, and the charges were later dismissed.

He is in his second season at the University of Mississippi, a perfect location for a coach who is good at his job but has too much baggage for Bloomington.

Why Indiana should be interested in Grant McCasland

Another name linked to the scheduled opening at Indiana includes Baylor’s Scott Drew, himself a Hoosier native. At this point in his career, it’s hard to see Drew leaving Waco, even for Indiana. He has complete scene control of his program.

The other names on this invisible list include Michigan head coach Dusty May, who in his first season in Ann Arbor is doing what he did at Florida Atlantic. If May passes, that will create a discussion for McCasland.

Now in his second year at Tech, McCasland is the hire that Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt desperately needed for a program in search of stability.

McCasland won at Arkansas State, North Texas and now Texas Tech. Every team he’s coached but one in his nine years has won 20 games, and he will soon lead Texas Tech to the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year.

The only detail to his resume that would make IU worry is that McCasland is all-parts Texas, and no parts Midwest. Other than a two-year stint as an assistant at a junior college in Colorado, McCasland’s entire career has been in Texas.

That detail may keep McCasland below the fold on IU’s wish list, but it should not be enough from IU eliminating him as a candidate.

Why McCasland should be interested in Indiana

Indiana once resided in the same neighborhood as UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke and Kentucky. Since Matt Painter replaced Gene Keady as the head coach at Purdue, in 2006, the Boilermakers are the “name” basketball team in Indiana rather than Indiana.

IU’s last Final Four appearance was in 2002; IU’s last national title came in 1987. IU’s best player on that title team, Steve Alford, is currently the head coach at Nevada, 60 years old, and a grandfather.

Since IU fired Knight in the summer of 2000, the Hoosiers have had five full-time head coaches. This includes Kelvin Sampson, who coached at IU from 2006 to 2008, when he resigned over NCAA violations.

Despite all of this mediocrity, it’s still Indiana. Few places in college basketball are like it, and when Assembly Hall rocks, it’s a magical scene created only in a few places in America.

The power of the brand, and what it can be, is why Gillespie left Texas A&M after three solid seasons in College Station for the University of Kentucky, in 2007.

At the time he took over Kentucky, it wasn’t the Kentucky of Rick Pitino, Joe B. Hall or Adolph Rupp. It was just a desperate program burning cash to be that again.

Gillespie lasted two seasons at Kentucky before he was fired, and replaced by John Calipari. Although Gillispie never looked like an ideal fit for that job, he had to try because it was Kentucky.

A few people will have to say “No” for McCasland to be asked the question, “Do you want be the head coach at Indiana?”

Don’t be stunned if he says, “Yes.”

It may not be Bob Knight’s Indiana basketball, but it’s still Indiana basketball.

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