Keenan Evans tries to dribble the ball to his left, gets it stolen by Texas's Andrew Jones who takes it coast to coast for a jam and that sealed the deal for our once promising season. Later that week all Red Raider fans would sit by the TV, computer, and phone wondering if we made it to the consolation bracket, the NIT. As Clemson and Oakland were shown as the last two teams in the tourney we all realized that our disappointing season has come to an end.

The common emotion to feel in this instance after sadness is anger, and the need to blame someone, Coach Beard is going to take the majority of that blame and deservedly so. "He inherited a team that had six seniors and six juniors! Certainly, it should have been a piece of cake for him to contend for the Big 12 and make the NCAA tournament." The problem with this thinking of the idea that anyone can come in and coach a team to success. Fact of the matter is, it is tough to be a coach and come in and coach a bunch of guys you didn't recruit, no matter how skilled the team is. This team proved that it's a good team that can play with anyone but had one major flaw: the inability to close. Tech had six losses by two possessions or less. That's an absurd amount and not even including the four games that were close throughout to where we let the opposing team break away in the final minute. That is something that happens when you have a team still trying to figure out its system. Too many times this team regressed to hero ball and not playing like a team at the end and that was evident watching Tech implode vs Texas in the Big12 Tournament.

Coach Beard deserves to be given a chance, after all he's one of us! His daughters grew up in Lubbock, he was an assistant during the best times in Texas Tech Basketball history (the Bob Knight era), and wants to be here. He has been successful everywhere he has been and we need to give him some time to formulate the team the way he needs to. Next year's team will have five seniors from the first Tubby Smith recruiting class, these guys have stuck together through thick and thin and will now be under Coach Beard for the second year. I have more faith in these guys as most of them have been at Tech the entire time and know what it takes to get to the NCAA tournament. After all the NCAA tournament and not the NIT is what we need to be shooting for after all.