Do you like to read? If so, that link is what you need to click on to read Grant McCasland’s Big 12 Media Day press conference. If you prefer to watch and listen, then click on the video below.

Lots of questions about tempo and I thought this answer was pretty great:

Q. Obviously the last couple years you guys played one of the slowest tempos in the country. I’m curious how you balance that and the success that it had with recruits probably wanting to play a little faster at a high level like Texas Tech?

GRANT McCASLAND: I can’t imagine what everybody said bad about us in recruiting. Having played the slowest pace in the country in the last two years and having one of the best defenses — we also had the best road neutral record in the country the last couple years.

So we felt like that give us the best chance to win, and especially getting into the NCAA Tournament, how do we win games in the NCAA Tournament. We looked at that at the end.

Honestly, Coach Beard, Coach Adams, allowed us to really study that 2019 championship game against Virginia, which had two of the slower paced teams, and we went out and met with them, and that’s where they helped us.

We put the side defense in three, four years ago, and it really has helped give us what we felt like was three conference championships in different ways.

We just felt like it gave us the best chance to win. If you turn the page and people can look at our roster, we’ve got an extremely athletic team. We don’t have the same constraints maybe with our roster that we did at North Texas where maybe it was a shorter roster of guys that we felt like could help us win the National Championship.

We’ve branched out, hired a great guy, Dave Smart, who’s played on the 24-second shot clock in Canada for his entire career. So that’s a different mentality.

Really excited about how we can put pressure on defenses quicker. We’ve been doing some three seconds to the three-point line on possessions to try to create more tempo. We played in a scrimmage the other day and we had way more possessions than we did historically at North Texas.

I just think the ultimate answer for this is we’re going to play what fits our team and gives us the best chance to win in the Big 12. I do think what you’ll see in our roster complements us pushing the basketball and playing faster. And not so everybody feels good about themselves, even though everybody wants to talk about how fast you play, but because I do think he gives us the best chance to win with this team.

Now, when you get in Big 12 play and injuries, that can dictate a lot of things of what you end up doing with your roster, but at this time I’m really excited about the way we’re playing and I think people will see a different type of basketball than maybe what they’ve seen the last few years.

Grant McCasland with Fran Fraschilla and ESPN for the Big 12 Media Day and then Warren Washington the secon half of the video.

Fun video of the soccer team and how they get ready for the Oklahoma game:

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Nathan Giese has 3 questions ahead of yesterday’s Big 12 media day. Here’s 1 of the 3 questions:

2. What kind of pace/tempo will the Red Raiders employ?

The worst-kept secret of McCasland’s arrival is his teams at North Texas played slower than slow. The Mean Green were dead-last nationally in adjusted tempo and average possession length last season. Tech was a middle of the pack team in both categories.

McCasland’s system, plus the system brought in by new assistant coach Dave Smart, should put emphasis back on defense for Tech, an area the team sorely lacked last season (they finished 66th in adjusted defensive efficiency after being a top 20 team each of the previous five years).
Isaacs said this summer that the Red Raiders will be a team that gets up and down the court and shoot a lot of 3-pointers. The team has also made a point to say how physical and intentional they will be this season. Combining the two elements could make for an interesting watch.

Senior forward Lady Raider Jordyn Merritt was named to the Cheryl Miller Small Forward of the Year Award Watchlinst. Merritt is a transfer of Florida and averaged nearly 8 points and 5 rebounds a game last year.