Texas Basketball: 5 potential replacements for Shaka Smart as head coach

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - NOVEMBER 23: Head coach Shaka Smart of the Texas Longhorns gestures during the championship game of the 2018 Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational basketball tournament against the Michigan State Spartans at the Orleans Arena on November 23, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Michigan State defeated Texas 78-68. (Photo by Sam Wasson/Getty Images) /

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LUBBOCK, TEXAS – JANUARY 07: Head coach Chris Beard of the Texas Tech Red Raiders (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /

1. Chris Beard

This is a no-brainer. Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard and the Longhorns have been connected for a few years now, and this could be the offseason in which the big question is answered:

Would Beard leave Texas Tech for his alma mater?

Beard has built Texas Tech, which used to be one of the worst and most insignificant high major programs in the country, into a perennial winner. The Red Raiders came within an overtime of a National Championship win last season, thanks to the coaching and recruiting of Beard (three of five starters were transfers).

Beard has also turned Texas Tech into a top recruiting destination. The Red Raiders have a top-ten caliber recruiting class in 2020, and the play of Jah’mius Ramsey this season, who was a four-star recruit in 2019 and the highest-ranked recruit in program history, has been a difference-maker for Texas Tech.

Beard has not stated any desire to end up at UT, which is his alma mater, but if he were to, it wouldn’t be cheap. Prying him from an in-conference and in-state rival would be a tall task, and it would take a whole lot of convincing on Beard’s end for him to leave his home in Lubbock.

Next. Complete bubble watch. dark

If the Longhorns were to miraculously hire Beard, it would be a shocking hire, as well as one of the most significant in recent college basketball memory.

That is one big if, however.

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