Texas Tech University has made the decision to promote assistant coach and TTU alum Mark Adams to head coach of the men’s basketball program, replacing Chris Beard, who left that position last Thursday to accept the head coaching job at rival Texas.
Adams spent the last five seasons as associate head coach under Beard, a run that included a run to the national championship game in 2019, where the Red Raiders lost in overtime to Virginia, in addition to a Elite Eight run in 2018.
Adams graduated from Texas Tech in 1979, and brings 23 years of head coaching experience to the Lubbock schools, from 1981 to 2013 at Clarendon College, Wayland Baptist, West Texas A&M, Texas Pan-American, and Howard College.
A job with even more pedigree in Division One is also going to a long-time assistant with alumnus ties, as the University of North Carolina promoted Hubert Davis to the job left open by the retirement of Roy Williams.
Davis played for the legendary Dean Smith for the Tar Heels from 1988 to 1992, before being drafted in the first-round by the New York Knicks, beginning a 12-year pro career.
In a move that was expected, UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham stayed “in the Carolina family” to grab Davis, with UNC Greensboro’s Wes Miller seen as the other front-runner for the position.
Davis has been an assistant coach until Williams for the past nine seasons in Chapel Hill.
In other collegiate news, Iowa State University, on Monday afternoon, extended the contract of athletic director Jamie Pollard through 2026, a reward for that can be directly attributed to the Cyclones 2020 football season that included a trip to a New Year’s Day Bowl (a Fiesta Bowl win over Oregon) and a second place finish in the Big 12 Conference.