Texas Tech Basketball Notebook: Shannon Considers NBA Options; Crowder & Adams at Howard

Terrence Shannon is still checking out his NBA options, which I highly encourage and hope he’s able to chase his dream and get drafted. On Sunday, Shannon flew out for more interviews with teams and Lady Raider associate head coach JC Carter and his sons caught Shannon at the airport.

And as of last night, Shannon was interviewing with the Warriors.

All 76ers’ Kevin McCormick has a nice look at what Shannon could bring to an NBA team:

Shannon also shows promise on the other side of the floor. His six-foot-eight wingspan gives him the ability to defend multiple positions at the NBA level. In college, Shannon showed he can be a capable team defender. He has good instincts and uses his long arms to be a menace in the passing lanes.

If drafted, Shannon is an ideal fit for the Sixers. His athleticism, along with three-and-D potential, makes him an enticing prospect. Depending on how things go with the Sixers’ current free agents, they might need wing players for the end of the bench.

The Phoenix Suns’ Jae Crowder is playing for an NBA Championship and the reason this is relevant is that Crowder played for Mark Adams at Howard College where Crowder and Adams won a JUCO national championship in 2010. Want to see a blast from the past, including Mark Adams?

And if there was ever any indication about the connection that Adams has with a ton of coaches, this story told by then coach Buzz Williams (now coaching TAMU) about Williams getting a call from Adams who sold Williams on Crowder:

“Much has been written about all of the college coaches that I wrote as a kid. One of the college coaches of the 425 that I accumulated during my career was on the rise as a Division I coach. His name was Mark Adams. He was at UT-Pan American,” Williams, who is as good of a storyteller as you will come across in this business, said.

“Its almost role reversal. In some respects, some people think I’m on the rise. I get a call from one college coach I used to write, and he says ‘do you remember Mark Adams?’ I wrote him 400 letters, I remember him. ‘He’s the head coach at a JuCo and he loves you and he remembers you writing and he wants you to call him.’”

So Buzz called, and it turns out that Adams was the head coach at Howard College and wanted him to come check out Crowder, who Adams said was ‘the best player he’s ever coached.’ So Williams books a flight and takes in a game, and Crowder does absolutely nothing. It was bad enough that Adams came up to Williams after the game to apologize for the bad tip and poor showing.

As Williams tells it, “I said ‘Coach, I want him.’ He says ‘What do you mean?’ I said ‘Coach, I was 19 years old and you were the rising star in Division I. I know you know what a player is more than I do. I trust you.’”

But there was more to it than simply trusting the instinct of a guy that was up-and-coming the better part of two decades ago.

“I saw Jae have the worst game he could have and he was by far the best teammate in the building,” Williams said. “He’s coaching, he’s on the bench waving towels, its a time out and he’s meeting them on the floor giving them dap.”

“He could play for me.”

A couple of things here, it was the job at UT-PanAm that ended Adams’ hopes of working up the Division I ladder, so Williams wrote to Adams and gave Williams a chance as a player and then many years later, Williams trusted Adams about a player that Adams knew he could play. Of course, the other part is that Crowder’s leadership is within him, but Adams maybe helped foster that as well.

If you were wanting to bet on one player that transfers to Texas Tech, I’d maybe bet on Oral Roberts’ Kevin Obanor (6-8/225). No inside information, just a hunch. Obanor is from the Houston area and assistant coach Telvin Hester has so many roots there, that this makes some sense. If Shannon returns, there’s really no need for another small forward and Obanor would be a huge boon, 18.7 points a game and 9.6 rebounds. Obanor is also considering his NBA options, so that’s an option as well.

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