LUBBOCK, Texas — This is a fun game. What’s the most unfathomable tale of Grant McCasland’s belief?

There’s the one from his first NCAA Tournament win. His North Texas team was a No. 13 seed, playing No. 4 Purdue in 2021. The Mean Green had never won an NCAA Tournament game. As his players warmed up on the Lucas Oil Stadium court, McCasland took a locker-room selfie and texted it to the team. This is where we’ll be celebrating in two hours. North Texas won, of course, 78-69.

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Then there’s the one where McCasland told a player to shoot with his non-dominant hand.

It was 2018, McCasland’s first season at North Texas. He had taken over an eight-win team and led the Mean Green to 15 regular-season victories and a spot in the College Basketball Invitational. They opened the tournament as double-digit underdogs at South Dakota — the ideal setup for McCasland.

At the game-day shootaround, McCasland noticed Michael Miller, a left-handed junior-college transfer who had averaged two points per game, messing around shooting with his right hand. Hmmm. McCasland had an idea for Miller. Shoot it with your right hand the rest of shootaround. 

McCasland studied the shot. As a lefty, Miller shot a flat ball. His righty stroke looked more natural. Better arc. So McCasland told him to shoot right-handed during the game. 

His assistants looked at him side-eyed.

They were even more astonished when McCasland started Miller, who had played seven minutes in the team’s previous five games. Then, 3 1/2 minutes in, McCasland ran a baseline-out-bounds play for him. Miller, who’d made only three 3s all season, buried a corner 3. Next possession, Miller caught the ball on the right wing with his defender three feet away and his hands down; he uncorked another. All net. A player who had never scored in double figures for the Mean Green finished 4-of-5 on 3s and scored 19 points in a 90-77 victory.

That game changed Miller’s life. He started the next five games, as North Texas won the CBI; Miller is now in his fourth year as a professional overseas.

“When he gets convicted,” says Ross Hodge, who spent seven seasons as McCasland’s assistant, “he has the ability to transfer that conviction to everybody.”

This is Grant McCasland. The dreamer. The believer. The guy who just wins no matter the odds. Who worked his way up as a junior-college coach, then a Division II coach, then a high-major assistant at Baylor before winning at the mid-major level at Arkansas State and North Texas.

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Now he’s tasked with bringing winning back to Texas Tech, which fell off last season during a tumultuous second season for Mark Adams, who resigned in March after finishing last in the Big 12. Texas Tech came after the 47-year-old McCasland because for a few years now he’s been labeled as one of the next big things. Every program he’s led has won like never before.

And to understand why, you have to meet every version of the man.

The Fighter

On a Thursday in late October, sophomore guard Pop Isaacs can’t seem to get a shot to go in. After a series of missed 3-pointers, his eyes drop to the floor.

“Have some composure,” McCasland yells. “Don’t put your head down and walk off.”

The frustration bleeds into Friday. During 5-on-0 offense, Isaacs misses and drops his head again. “I don’t give a crap if you make it,” McCasland screams across the floor. “I want to love playing for each other. We ain’t putting our head down and not pointing at him for a good pass.”

The Red Raiders run the same play, and when Isaacs catches the ball in the same spot and one-mores to the corner without looking at the basket, McCasland makes them run it again. “Catch it ready to shoot!” Isaacs does so on the next turn and buries it.

“It’s tough,” Isaacs says days later, “but you want that from your coach to get on you as hard as he can.”

McCasland is confrontational. You don’t see it coming. Off the court, he’s Mr. Rogers. On the practice floor, he can burn as hot as Bob Knight. He doesn’t curse, but much like Knight, the standard is the standard.

“He’s relentless,” former assistant Jareem Dowling says. “He’s like a leak. He keeps dripping and dripping and dripping, and eventually he’s gonna get what he wants out of whatever he’s doing.”

Nothing is inconsequential. One non-negotiable is rebounding with two hands. During a walk-through on Friday night — when there is no defense, just jogging through sets — a missed shot bounces toward the 3-point line. Senior guard Chance McMillian reaches out with one hand to grab the ball and throws a scoop pass in one motion to a teammate by the basket. “Don’t do that, Chance,” McCasland demands. “Pick it up with two hands and throw it to him.”

McCasland has an intolerance for selfish play, no matter how innocent it may seem. Senior guard Joe Toussaint says McCasland gets on him about fidgeting with his jersey, even if he’s just trying to dry his hands.

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“Everything revolves around going back to your teammates,” Toussaint says. “You miss a shot, you get a turnover, you do something wrong, just get close to your teammates.”

McCasland believes this is what wins. He coaches with the perspective of a guy who was the last one on the bench. He tore his ACL in the seventh grade playing football and, wearing a clunky knee brace two months later, he was cut from the basketball team.

“I remember reading it on the wall, not making the team, going home for the whole weekend just embarrassed,” he says. “Amazingly embarrassed, like the most embarrassed I’ve ever been.”

McCasland went to see the coach on Monday and was told he could be a manager. But McCasland was unwilling to accept that he wasn’t good enough. The coach gave him a spot on the B-team. McCasland worked his way up the depth chart in the following weeks and started the opener on the A-team.

“It kind of just affirmed that you always win because of practice,” he says. “You make it because you’re relentless in your approach.”

McCasland wasn’t much of a high school player. He was hurt his final two years — a bout with mono, then surgery to repair his ACL — and his team wasn’t good. Mike Kunstadt, a neighbor who has run a Texas recruiting service since 1988, suggested to the Baylor staff they give McCasland a chance as a walk-on.

“(Then-Bears assistant Billy Gillispie) gave me the most grim speech you’ve ever heard in your life,” McCasland says. No one would know he was on the team. Every day he’d play defense, and that was it. When McCasland would shoot before practice, Gillispie would ask him why, because he was never going to shoot in a game.

McCasland’s nickname was “Rat.” “I bet he weighed 120, 130 pounds trying to play in the Big 12,” Gillispie says. “But he didn’t let being little be detrimental to him. No matter what it was, you couldn’t keep him down.”

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McCasland played with a smile. He was always encouraging his teammates. Gillispie would give him a hard time, but the way McCasland responded and how he battled — scholarship players would want to fight him during rebounding drills — earned Gillispie’s respect. One day he called McCasland over, and McCasland readied himself for a smart-aleck remark; instead, Gillispie asked: Have you ever thought about coaching?

The Perfectionist

In his first season as a head coach at Midland College, McCasland lost in the Elite Eight on a tipped dunk. Which led to an epiphany.

“Why would you play for anything other than playing the last game?” he says.

His approach became preparing for the end from the beginning, an obsession with making sure his team won its last game. Two years later, Midland won the NJCAA national championship despite McCasland losing his best player midway through the season and eventually starting a walk-on he’d discovered at an open gym. It was validation that his way worked, never losing sight of the end.

The Red Raiders learned quickly this preseason what the build looks like. On the same day McCasland was all over Isaacs about his body language, he lit into fifth-year senior Devan Cambridge after he tried to pass the ball into the post from a bad angle. But it wasn’t the turnover that made him mad. It was Cambridge running to the wrong spot on the floor once the ball went into the post. Building the right habits prevents mistakes.

“He’s very detail-oriented,” Toussaint says. “He holds you accountable. He holds you to a high standard. And yes, it’s annoying, like, I’m not gonna sit here and say it’s not annoying, because he nitpicks everything. But it also makes you better.”

Toussaint, a fifth-year senior at his third school, says McCasland has already transformed the way he plays through film study and constant feedback during practice. Toussaint has always played the game like he had the pedal on the floor. He never gave much thought to where he was passing the ball. He’d see it and throw it. He’s averaged 3.7 turnovers per 40 minutes in his career. Already, McCasland has him playing a more calculated game.

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“I’m a way better decision-maker now,” he says. “I don’t move as fast decision-wise. I’m still moving fast physically, obviously, but decision-wise, I’ve seen it slow down.”

During an end-of-game session with the clock ticking down at a practice last month, Toussaint got stuck in the short corner but didn’t panic, pivoting to find space. McCasland had told him that whenever the clock is running down, someone is always going to mess up defensively. Sure enough, Cambridge’s man stepped toward Toussaint and lost sight of Cambridge under the basket. Toussaint found Cambridge for a layup before the shot clock expired. Later, Toussaint appeared to get stuck in the lane without his dribble, but he waited for his man to leave his feet and then stepped through for an easy basket.

“My two favorite plays of the day,” McCasland told Toussaint that night as the guard rested on a cooler in the practice gym. “Shows you don’t have to panic in those situations.”

Where McCasland has changed in recent years is no longer showing the wrong way; he shows his players what it looks like when they do it right. He made the change after coaching his worst offensive team at North Texas, a 21-12 season in 2018-19. His team was turnover-prone, and he harped on those mistakes in film sessions. That offseason, Northwest Missouri State coach Ben McCollum encouraged him to show what he wanted his players to do rather than what not to do.

The next season, North Texas went from 265th in adjusted scoring efficiency to 34th and won a Conference USA title.

McCasland is critical of his delivery sometimes. “It’s not great,” he says. “But it’s the urgency and the fight that I want them to feel.”

The Server

A Nipsey Hussle clip plays in the Texas Tech video room on a Friday morning. In the video, the late rapper theorizes why he made it big while others who chased a similar dream fell short. “I didn’t quit,” he says. “That’s the only distinguishing quality for me.”

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Assistant strength coach Christian Hosely selected the day’s message for the Red Raiders. “I love this dude’s heart,” McCasland tells his team about Hosely. Then, unscripted, he launches into a 12-minute speech that feels like a sermon. Messages of love and sacrifice and dependability, circling back to Hosely at the end.

“Every day I know what I’m getting with Hose,” McCasland says. “I’m getting a big hug and some kind of big five that maybe hurt my hand, you know what I mean? That’s why I love being around people like him.”

A day later, the Red Raiders are watching film at their hotel, leading up to an Oct. 29 charity game against Texas A&M at North Texas. McCasland brings trainer Mike Neal to the front of the room and has players and staff share why they appreciate Neal. It’s a road-trip tradition. “This is my favorite part, men,” McCasland says.

McCasland is the type of person who feels like your friend from the jump. “He is almost like a politician,” says Jarad Hollis, a manager for four years at North Texas under McCasland. “You fall in love with him immediately. You walk away, ‘Dang, that man is so cool and so nice.’”

He is his father’s son.

Roger McCasland was involved with everything his children did. He coached them — his motto was “run, gun and have fun” — and he always had them by his side in his work. “At a young age,” Grant says, “I was always pushed to help people.”

When Grant was in high school, Roger was the Education Minister at Plymouth Park Baptist Church in Irving, Texas, where he founded Serving Irving. The McCaslands and families from their church would serve turkey dinners on Thanksgiving to the less fortunate. One year, they fed nearly 5,000 people. Roger also created a pop-up Bible study called Game Wagon. He bought a concession trailer, filled it with games and hooked up a basketball hoop to Grant’s Toyota pickup truck.

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As a teenager, Grant was put in charge of Game Wagon. Every week Grant, his brother Josh and a group of friends would show up to two different apartment complexes — one in the morning and one in the afternoon — and go door-to-door, inviting kids to play games and participate in Bible study.

When Roger had a stroke 10 years ago, Josh estimates his dad had 35 non-profit businesses.

“It wasn’t for the purpose of like, how do you become famous?” Grant says. “Or how do you get something out of this? It was always, how do you give to the people that you’re around?”

Roger imparted two important lessons. The first was involving your family in your life’s work. Texas Tech practices in the mornings so McCasland and his staff can see their families at night. He can’t coach all his children like his father could, but he leans into their passions. In his new home in Lubbock, he’s building a barn with a basketball court for his two boys and a rock wall for his youngest daughter, Jersey, who climbs competitively.

Roger’s second gift was putting his son in charge of a group at such a young age. That helped a quiet kid find his voice.

“When he spoke, people listened,” Josh says of his brother. “He didn’t have to say a lot of words, but the things that he did say, you were like, well, dang, somebody took 30 minutes to say what he said in two.”

While playing for Baylor, Grant taught the Book of Romans to fellow college students on Sunday mornings. Through the church, he saw where he could help people.

“Everybody wants to come to church in your Sunday best and be cleaned up and act like you have it all figured out,” he says. “You want people to perceive you as fine, and nobody’s really fine. Like, everybody’s hurting. Everybody’s going through something. So the best identifier is to tell people the truth.”

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McCasland never lost the perspective. Super senior Warren Washington, who is at his third school, says most coaches “gas you up” during the recruiting process; McCasland told him what he needed to improve. He holds him to that standard every day.

Texas Tech assistant coach Achoki Moikobu sits in an idling Ford Expedition waiting on McCasland before the exhibition game against Texas A&M. McCasland has just finished delivering a scouting report, showing video of past A&M opponents smartly attacking the Aggies and then practice film of his group properly executing against the same schemes.

“We’ll be prepared for it,” he says as the tape finishes, “and we’ll go beat these dudes.”

The odds are against them. The Aggies, who began the season ranked No. 15, won 25 games last season and returned most of their core, including preseason SEC Player of the Year Wade Taylor IV. Texas Tech won only five conference games, and McCasland brought in seven new players. Moikobu would have said a few days earlier that winning the game was a far-fetched idea, but …

“Miracle Mac got me going,” he says.

“It’s not a fake belief,” assistant Matt Braeuer says from the third row of the Expedition. “It’s a conviction.”

Every version of McCasland is on display in the days leading up to the game. On Thursday and Friday, he coaches hard in practice. On Saturday and Sunday, he offers constant affirmation that his players have what it takes to beat the Aggies. He harps on the details and builds belief.

Watching him operate, you’d think it was an NCAA Tournament game. On the five-hour bus ride from Lubbock to Denton, he studies film. Once in Denton, McCasland crams more in on the seven-minute bus rides from the hotel to the arena and back. Four minutes before tipoff, alone in a small coaches’ locker room, he finally puts his laptop in his backpack.

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The Red Raiders miss their first six 3-pointers and fall behind 12-5. Then Isaacs, whom McCasland had been on harder than anyone the previous week, buries a 3. Two possessions later, another. Isaacs ends up making 6-of-10 3s and scoring 30 points. Toussaint also shows off his improved playmaking, dishing out seven assists to just two turnovers.

Texas A&M grabs the lead late, but an adjustment suggested by Braeuer to switch all screens helps the Red Raiders rally and win, 89-84.

McCasland’s first message to his team in the locker room is that they’ll celebrate when they get an official win in the regular season (They’re 2-0 after wins over Texas A&M-Commerce and San Jose State). But he can’t hold back his joy.

“That’s the fight that it takes to be great,” he says. “It was relentless.”

The win is made even sweeter by the fact the game was played at UNT Coliseum (aka “The Super Pit”), where he spent the last six years, and in front of Hodge, his former right-hand man who now leads the Mean Green. McCasland and Hodge tell each other they love each other before saying goodbye. Everyone from custodians to managers to administrators comes by to let McCasland know how much he means to them. It feels like a turning of the page.

McCasland will return to Lubbock and continue coaching with the same urgency, building toward the end.

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photo: Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)