Chris Beard Named Texas Tech Head Coach

The UNLV Rebels men's basketball team hired Chris Beard to be its head coach in March, but he's now headed to the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein reported the Red Raiders have hired Beard, while Jeff Goodman of ESPN confirmed.

Jeff Borzello of ESPN provided UNLV's official statement on Beard:

Texas Tech was without a coach after Memphis announced it hired Tubby Smith to fill its vacancy Thursday. Smith led the Red Raiders to the NCAA tournament this season and won the national championship in 1997-98 as the head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats.

According Goodman of ESPN.com, Beard has three daughters who live close to Texas Tech’s campus and “is intrigued largely because of his background” at the school.

Beard was an assistant coach for the Red Raiders for 10 seasons.

UNLV is not primed to compete in 2016-17 thanks to plenty of roster turnover after graduations, transfers and departures to the NBA draft. 

Beard went 30-5 last season at Arkansas-Little Rock. He won the regular-season Sun Belt championship and shocked the No. 5-seeded Purdue Boilermakers in the first round of the NCAA tournament before eventually bowing out to the No. 4-seeded Iowa State Cyclones.

Beard brought a defense-first philosophy to Arkansas-Little Rock and used a slow tempo to dictate games throughout the 2015-16 season. According to KenPom.com, Arkansas-Little Rock was No. 32 in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency and No. 345 in adjusted tempo, which means it shortened games with a glacial pace and played tough enough defense to win with that style.

Better defense would be a welcome change at Texas Tech after the Red Raiders were 93rd in adjusted defensive efficiency last season, per KenPom.com.

Texas Tech reached the Big Dance in 2016 for the first time since the 2006-07 campaign. Adding an up-and-coming coach such as Beard, who is fresh off one of the biggest upsets of the NCAA tournament, should help the program maintain that momentum and compete in the difficult Big 12.