North Texas head coach Grant McCasland signs six-year deal to coach Texas Tech men’s basketball

After parting ways with Mark Adams late in the 2022-23 season, Texas Tech has agreed to a six-year, $18 million deal with North Texas head coach Grant McCasland to lead the Red Raiders men’s basketball program.

McCasland led the North Texas Mean Green to an NIT Championship on Thursday night, defeating UAB 68-61 at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. North Texas finished the season 31-7, and over McCasland’s tenure in Denton the Mean Green went 104-58.

North Texas played a very distinctive style of basketball under Grant McCasland that many believe will translate well for the Red Raiders in the exceptionally physical Big 12 conference. McCasland’s team was elite defensively this season, finishing ranked 18th in KenPom’s defensive efficiency metric. The Mean Green’s defense was sixth-best nationally in effective field goal percentage against, and made opponents uncomfortable by playing at the slowest tempo in the country.

Grant McCasland walked onto Baylor’s basketball team and graduated in 1999. McCasland worked his way through the junior college coaching ranks before returning to Baylor as an assistant coach from 2011-2016. He became the head coach at Arkansas State in 2016, and eventually at North Texas in 2017. In Denton, McCasland has established himself as one of the premier defensive-minded coaches in the nation.

McCasland is the Red Raiders’ third head coach in three years, following similarly defensive-minded head coaches in Chris Beard and Mark Adams. McCasland also spent two years at Texas Tech immediately after graduating from Baylor, when he was a director of operations in Tech’s athletic department.