Tubby Smith is headed to college basketball’s Hall of Fame after reviving Texas Tech, ending a nine-year NCAA drought and reigniting the Red Raiders once again.
Tubby Smith didn’t stay at Texas Tech basketball long, but he stayed long enough to drag the Red Raiders out of the wilderness.
Now, the coach who restored March Madness to Lubbock is headed to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
Smith was selected as part of the 2026 induction class after compiling nearly 650 victories across a decorated career that included stops at seven Division I programs.
His body of work is headlined by Kentucky’s 1998 national championship, but his three seasons at Texas Tech shouldn’t be treated like a footnote.
When Smith arrived in Lubbock, the Red Raiders weren’t exactly a destination program. Texas Tech had fallen off the national radar and hadn’t earned an NCAA Tournament invitation since 2007.
Smith changed that.
The Red Raiders won 46 games during his tenure and broke through in 2016, earning an NCAA Tournament berth after a nine-year absence.
Texas Tech didn’t make a deep March run that season, but simply getting back into the field mattered. It proved the program wasn’t dead, irrelevant or incapable of winning in a loaded Big 12.
Smith helped build the bridge to everything that followed.
Texas Tech later reached new heights, including a run to the 2019 national championship game, but the program’s modern rise didn’t appear out of thin air.
Smith stabilized the operation, developed players and reminded the fan base that Red Raider basketball could compete on the sport’s biggest stage.
That impact now earns him a place alongside another legendary former Texas Tech coach, Bob Knight, who entered the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
Knight went 138-82 while coaching the Red Raiders from 2001 through 2008.
Smith’s 2026 class also features former Villanova coach Jay Wright, longtime Kansas coach Ted Owens and celebrated players Danny Ainge, Glen Rice and Walt Hazzard.
The group will be formally inducted on October 22, 2026, at the College Basketball Experience in Kansas City, Missouri. It will be the Hall of Fame’s 20th induction class.
Smith coached five different schools to the NCAA Tournament, won a national championship and collected nearly 650 career victories. Those accomplishments made his induction inevitable.
His Texas Tech chapter, however, deserves more appreciation than it sometimes receives.
Smith inherited a program stuck in neutral and pushed it back into March. He didn’t finish the transformation, but he lit the fuse—and Texas Tech basketball hasn’t been viewed the same way since.
Follow Timm Hamm on X at @IndyCarTim.
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