NCAA Tournament 2019: Top takeaways from Elite Eight games

By Brian Rauf | Apr 1, 2019

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 31: Cassius Winston #5 of the Michigan State Spartans celebrates after his teams 68-67 win over the Duke Blue Devils in the East Regional game of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Capital One Arena on March 31, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

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ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 30: Head coach Chris Beard of the Texas Tech Red Raiders celebrates with Jarrett Culver #23 after defeating the Gonzaga Bulldogs during the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament West Regional at Honda Center on March 30, 2019 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images) /

Texas Tech 75, Gonzaga 69

Texas Tech’s supporting cast is better than you think

Jarrett Culver is Texas Tech’s unquestioned best player and receives almost all the attention when it comes to this team. Culver will be a top 10 pick in the upcoming draft and is deserving, yet the increased quality play of his teammates as flown under the radar of his national profile.

Matt Mooney and Davide Moretti have become legitimate secondary scoring options at this point in the season and scored 17 and 12 points, respectively, against Gonzaga. Tariq Owens continues to be one of the nation’s best shot-blockers while Brandone Francis and Kyler Edwards don’t allow the level of play to drop when they come in off the bench.

Culver has been and will be the guy who you hear the most about this week ahead of the Final Four, but don’t mistake that for thinking the Red Raiders are a one-man team. The rest of the rotation can ball, too.

Chris Beard deserves every accolade you can give him

Four years ago, Beard had just finished his second season as the head coach of D-II Angelo State and was making the jump to Little Rock. The Trojans won 30 games and advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in their first season under Beard after winning just 13 the year prior.

That got Beard the UNLV job, which he held for a little less than three weeks before the Texas Tech job came open, and it has been one of the best decisions he has made.

In three seasons in charge of the Red Raiders, he has led them to the only two Elite Eight appearances in school history and now to the program’s first Final Four.

It has been a meteoric rise for Beard thanks to his immediate success at multiple stops without elite-level recruits. The two-time reigning Big 12 Coach of the Year deserves those accolades and should win his first national award sooner rather than later.

Given what he has accomplished so quickly at a program he has already made his own, there is no such thing as “too much praise” you can heap on Beard. He deserves it all.

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