Texas Tech Basketball and the Roster Shakedown

Amazingly, we've run through every position and despite me writing way too much about a basketball team that I don't think not as many people care about as I do, there's going to be a lot of turnover on this team and there will be some roster attrition. The purpose of this exercise is to try and figure out who its going to be on the roster based on reports, tweets, etc.

The strange thing is that there are a ton of players, more than the 13 allowed on a roster. Obviously, some of the players after the jump can be eliminated because they're walk-ons, but there's still a lot of options. Right now, here are the 21 players who have signed a letter of intent or agreed to be a preferred walk-on:

The thing we need to do here is remove the players that we know are walk-ons. Here are the walk-ons that I know are walk-ons (after the jump):

Now we're down to 17 players. That means, I think, that there are 4 players will not be on the roster that in a normal situation would have a scholarship available. Here's the 17 players:

Here are the rumblings that we've heard about players and whether or not they'll be back or not. RRS.com's Chris Level tweeted that Paul Cooper was the most likely player not to return and move closer to home. Now we have word that SG Jamel Outler will be transferring from Texas Tech. Depending on your point of view, Outler wanted to leave on his own, or Gillispie told Outler that he no longer had a scholarship available. If these two things are true, then we're down to 15 players.

When newest Texas Tech signee PF/C Daouda Soumaoro signed with Texas Tech (nothing is official just yet as there hasn't been an official press release), LAJ's Courtney Linehan, wrote that she thought that Soumaoro was likely to walk-on. Now, I don't know if that's based on the fact that Texas Tech is over the limit or that Linehan knows something about what's going on in terms of Soumaoro actually deciding that he would walk-on at Texas Tech for at least a year before a scholarship spot opens up (it would have to be Lewandowski or Jenkins). If this statement from Linehan is true, we're down to 14 players.

Finally, Chris Level tweeted the following:

I can confirm that a signee is headed to JC and a current player will transfer clearing a few spots on Billy Gillispie's #TexasTech roster.

The problem is that I'm not sure if Level is talking about Outler, as mentioned above, or another player. If I had to guess, I'm guessing it's Outler. The Level's other tidbit, which is that there is a signee is going to junior college. I think we can assume that the most recent signees, Soumaoro, Tapsoba, Nurse and Nash will all be here. I don't think that Gillispie would have spent his time on Soumaoro if he had not already qualified and the other three arrive at Texas Tech via JUCO and I don't think they're going back.

That means that it's one of the five freshmen. I can't imagine that Wagner is the player, as he just went through a ceremony with signing a letter of intent, although he signed his real letter of intent earlier in the year of 2011. I also don't think it's Gotcher or Petteway. Here's my proof for Petteway:

Everyone welcome Terran Petteway and family to Texas Tech! #RaiderPower http://yfrog.com/h733vtij

Make sure and click on the link for a picture. Good looking family and lots of cute kiddos. That's via Gillispie's newest Twitter handle. That means that it's down to either Tolbert or Robinson. Level did confirm on the radio on Friday of last week that the player transferring was Outler and the player who would be going to Tyler JC (the same junior college where Nash and Tapsoba just left) was Robrinson.

As along as Soumaoro is a walk-on, then the roster sits at 13 and you have your scholarship players and your walk-ons.  Additionally, I thought that a guy like Theron Jenkins might be let go the same way that Cooper was let go and would guess that if Soumaoro is going to get a scholarship, that's probably it.