According to Jeff Goodman with Stadium, Grant McCasland with the University of North Texas has become the front-runner for the Head Texas Tech men’s Basketball Coach to replace Mark Adams. A source told Stadium that TTU has looked at some big names, but has not been persuasive to get the big names. Since this came out, we decided to look a little further into McCasland.
McCasland does have some Texas Tech and West Texas ties. Right now McClascan has a 130-65 record in six seasons at UNT, but he has a lot of coaching experience. He has also led the Mean Green to the NITs Super Sixteen and will take on Big 12 Oklahoma State tonight Tuesday, March 21, 2023, at 6:00 pm on ESPN.
McCasland has 24 years of coaching experience and most of that is here in the state of Texas. Prior to UNT, he spent one year at Arkansas State as the Red Wolves head men’s basketball coach. In that year, he helped Arkansas State with a 10-win improvement and was the second-best turnaround in Division 1 basketball that year.
Before leaving for Arkansas State, McCasland spent five seasons as an assistant coach at Baylor, helping lead the Bears to NCAA Tournament appearances in 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016. The Bears also won their first-ever postseason title in program history in 2013, capturing the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) championship.
Prior to Baylor, he spent two seasons as the head coach at Midwestern State (in Wichita Falls Texas and is now under the Texas Tech University System) and led the program to back-to-back Elite Eight appearances in the NCAA Division II Tournament.
McCasland hasn’t always been at the university level, he got his head coaching roots from the junior college level. In his early 20s after earning his master’s at Texas Tech in 2001, McCasland got his first assistant coaching job at Northeastern JC in Sterling, Colorado, where he not only served as a coach but was a resident assistant at the school’s dorms. After just two seasons at Northeastern, McCasland earned a head coaching job down the highway at Midland College in 2004, and at the time he was just 27 years old.
Although the head basketball coach, he still had other duties to cover including being the team bus driver, McCasland still guided the Chaparrals to the 2007 National Junior College Athletic Association national championship. He coached against legendary college coaches such as Mark Adams who had over 25 years of head coaching experience at the time and he still led Midland to win four games in four days at the national tournament to win the title. He also coached against Steve Green who is now an assistant at TTU and who was the head basketball coach at South Plains College and lead the Texans to three national titles. During those years at the helm, he had six players on the team go on to earn division one scholarship.
He graduated from Baylor with a degree in entrepreneurship and management and received his master’s degree from Texas Tech in 2001. At Tech, he served as the Director of Basketball Operations under James Dickey. At Tech, McCasland met his wife Cece, who was a former soccer player for the Red Raiders. Grant and Cece have four children: daughters Amaris and Jersey and sons Jett and Beckett.
List of his coaching experience:
COACHING EXPERIENCE:
• 1999-2001 Texas Tech, director of operations
• 2001-03 Northeastern JC, assistant coach
• 2004-09 Midland College, head coach
• 2009-11 Midwestern State, head coach
• 2011-16 Baylor, assistant coach
• 2016-17 Arkansas State, head coach
• 2017-pres. North Texas, head coach
POSTSEASON EXPERIENCE
• 2004-05 NJCAA, Elite Eight (Midland)
• 2006-07 NJCAA, National Champions (Midland)
• 2008-09 NJCAA, Finals (Midland)
• 2009-10 NCAA Division II, Elite Eight (Midwestern State)
• 2010-11 NCAA Division II, Elite Eight (Midwestern State)
• 2011-12 NCAA, Elite Eight (Baylor)
• 2012-13 NIT, champions (Baylor)
• 2013-14 NCAA, Sweet 16 (Baylor)
• 2014-15 NCAA, First Round (Baylor)
• 2015-16 NCAA, First Round (Baylor)
• 2017-18 CBI Champions (North Texas)
• 2020-21 NCAA Tournament, Round of 32 (North Texas)
• 2020-21 NIT Second Round (North Texas)
