Coming back to your alma mater, being the hero of turning around a downtrodden program, probably seemed like a dream come true for Krista Gerlich.
The reality has been far different. The Texas Tech women’s basketball team has yet to find its footing under Gerlich’s tenure, and there were some questions about whether the former Lady Raider legend would get a sixth year in Lubbock to see her vision through.
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Not only has success been minimal — Texas Tech boasts about NCAA Tournament appearances, not WNIT or WBIT trips — but fans have begun to tune out. Excluding the 2020-21 season, where COVID-19 protocols greatly reduced the allowed fans inside United Supermarkets Arena for games, Texas Tech’s first three games of the 2025-26 season had the first-, second- and fourth-lowest reported attendance figures in Gerlich’s tenure.
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Gerlich knows she needs this team to succeed, at the very least, to compete for a spot on the NCAA Tournament bubble come February and March. With nine seniors on a 12-player roster, the time is now to put together a season to stand behind.
With games like Thursday’s 91-60 thumping of ACC foe SMU, this year’s Lady Raiders may just be the ones to put it all together.
Texas Tech head coach Krista Gerlich (left) and Gemma Núñez look on during non-conference women’s basketball game against SMU, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, at United Supermarkets Arena.
It’s not necessarily getting another blowout win at home that was impressive. The Lady Raiders have plenty of those in nonconference play under Gerlich. It was how the team operated, looking like a cohesive unit that fed off each other rather than relying on one or two players to do everything themselves.
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Bailey Maupin is the longest-tenured Lady Raider, the West Texas kid Gerlich hoped would help reignite local interest and on-court success. Maupin got her senior season off to a slow start, shooting just 36.4% overall and 25% from three in Texas Tech’s 3-0 start.
Maupin hit another gear against the Mustangs, taking the first pass of the entire game from Gemma Nunez, drilling a 3-pointer as she was getting fouled and finishing the four-point play. That led to the Lady Raiders busting out to a 30-9 lead in the first stanza and flirting with a 40-point cushion throughout the second half.
“She was very aggressive on offense and was extremely good on defense,” Gerlich said of Maupin, “and that’s what we’ve been really harping on her about a lot is being a complete player and playing every possession.”
“Complete” is not something the Lady Raiders have appeared to be in Gerlich’s tenure. Whether it’s Maupin, Jasmine Shavers, or Vivian Gray, Texas Tech has had good individual talent, but the pieces around them haven’t generated enough elsewhere to make the team seem dangerous.
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That narrative could change this season. Maupin broke loose with a 26-point effort, but was complemented by Jalynn Bristow’s double-double of 20 points and 10 rebounds, Snudda Collins going for 17 off the bench. And Nunez, the Campbell transfer, gives the Lady Raiders a true quarterback on the court, one looking to set others up for shots instead of herself.
Over the last few years, Texas Tech’s offense fell into a rut, requiring the likes of Maupin and Shavers to also serve as the team’s point guards. That led to more isolation ball, poor spacing and scoring droughts that have led to many of the inefficiencies. Now the team has an array of options, all of them trying to be pieces fitting together rather than the whole puzzle.
“I feel like when I drive,” Bristow said, “there’s always someone following a path, posted up down, someone in the corner. Definitely having everyone on the spot. … knowing they can shoot it from that spot, too.”
Midway through the third quarter, SMU was forced to call a timeout as Texas Tech was in the midst of a 16-0 run to blow the game open. Gerlich greeted her team near midcourt and threw her arms into the air, trying to get the 3,425 in attendance (a season high) a bit more excited for the offensive display they were witnessing.
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In a sense, it was Gerlich begging the crowd to realize what’s happening — and what she hopes will continue to happen as the Lady Raiders face tougher competition over the next week. Her tenure has been dissected every which way, questioning if what she’s done to this point has been good enough.
More: Snudda Collins thriving in role off bench for Texas Tech women’s basketball
Texas Tech head coach Krista Gerlich encourages her team during non-conference women’s basketball game against SMU, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, at United Supermarkets Arena.
The reality is that she knows it hasn’t been good enough, not to her own standards or anyone else’s, for what they had hoped her return to Lubbock would be. On Sunday, during Texas Tech’s game against Arkansas, the 1993 national championship team that featured Gerlich as a star will be inducted into the Ring of Honor. While Gerlich’s past achievements will always be memorable, her tenure as head coach hasn’t reached that same level.
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But Gerlich is still fighting like hell to make this thing work, and she might just have the right team to finally reach the heights the coach has hoped would eventually come.
“Everybody’s been on me, right?” Gerlich said. “Everybody’s been on me about getting this team to where it needs to be, and we’re getting there, and these kids are playing their asses off to beat an ACC team, to have them down by 30. … I want our fans on their feet appreciating the hard play and just celebrating that because it’s hard to win Division I basketball games, and it’s hard to win power-four basketball games, and these kids are playing their hearts out.
“I just want them to get some momentum. I appreciate everybody that came to the game today, and we want them to come back Sunday, because it’s not getting any easier, but we want them to be just as engaged as they are at the men’s games.”
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Six years in, Krista Gerlich may have her best team yet | Giese
