Texas Hiring Chris Beard as Next Longhorns Head Coach
Texas has hired Chris Beard to be its next head basketball coach, according to a report file by Stadium.com’s Jeff Goodman on Thursday morning.
The University of Texas made it official later Thursday.
Beard replaces Shaka Smart, who took the head-coaching position at Marquette last week, and launched widespread speculation that the Longhorns would pursue Beard to take over the program.
Smart coached the Longhorns for six seasons and led them to the 2021 Big 12 Tournament championship. But, Texas failed to win a game in his three NCAA Tournament appearances, including a loss to Abilene Christian in the first round of the current Tournament.
Beard is a Texas alum who served as a student manager under former head coach Tom Penders.
It’s the ‘nightmare scenario’ for Texas Tech basketball fans, the one job that Texas basketball fans believed Red Raiders head coach Chris Beard cannot turn down.
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Beard’s qualifications are FAR more impressive than being a former student manager.
At Texas Tech he won 112 games in five seasons, during which the Red Raiders won 112 games, shared the 2019 Big 12 regular-season title, made three NCAA Tournament appearances and reached the 2019 national championship game, where the Red Raiders lost to Virginia in overtime. He also cultivated two of Texas Tech’s best recruiting classes.
This is the fourth head-coaching change in the Big 12 so far this offseason. Iowa State fired Steve Prohm and hired T.J. Otzelberger. With Beard replacing Smart, the Red Raiders will be looking for a new head coach. Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger announced his retirement last week.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
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