Krista Gerlich was in the car, headed toward Lubbock for what was supposed to be a simple weekend on the lake with an old teammate and friend, one last exhale before her own season at UT-Arlington would ramp up. Then the news broke. Texas Tech had fired head coach Marlene Stollings amid allegations of a toxic and abusive culture that landed them on the front page of USA Today. Suddenly the program Gerlich once helped lead to a national championship as a player was back in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Not long after, her phone rang.
On the other end was Bailey Maupin, then a four-star high school recruit with deep Lady Raider roots but very little reason or plans at the time to choose Tech as where she wanted to spend her college career.
“Did you just hear the news?” Maupin asked the coach who had actually given Maupin her very first college offer when she was only in eighth grade, of course to UT-Arlington where Gerlich was coaching at the time not Tech.
Because if the rumors Maupin was hearing were true, if Gerlich really was in the mix for the job, the door was officially open for the West Texas star to maybe stay home after all.
“If it’s happening,” Maupin told her that day, “That’s the only way I would be a Lady Raider.”
In that moment nearly six years ago, somewhere between US 84 and a lost lake weekend, the first thread that would help stitch together one of the best stories in college basketball this year was pulled.
Gerlich soon found herself in a whirlwind of interviews with Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt. The program was frankly reeling, navigating the fallout from allegations of a toxic culture just weeks before official practices for the 2020-21 season were set to begin. The sport itself was still learning how to operate in the middle of a global pandemic.
Whoever took the job was not walking into stability or easy.
Gerlich took it anyway.
“This program meant so much to me,” she said. “And I told Kirby in my interview… I’m probably one of the only people that can do this because I’m one of the only people that will fight through the fire or stand in the fire long enough to get it done.”
This program meant too much to her to watch it burn from afar. She wasn’t afraid to step into the fire and try to save it.
On August 18, 2020, Texas Tech made it official and named Gerlich its next head coach.
The challenge in front of her was significant. The roster was essentially left empty following her makeshift first year, as players understandably chased fresh starts. The trust and reputation outside of the program had to be rebuilt. The culture inside had to be restored. And all of it was unfolding in real time during one of the most uncertain stretches college athletics had ever faced.
Then add in the part almost no one knew about at the time.
A year long battle with cancer Gerlich thought she had put behind her resurfaced just months into her time at Texas Tech. So on top of the turmoil she had been tasked with cleaning up, and a global pandemic that was reshaping the sport, she was also fighting cancer, silently. It was thankfully a battle she would ultimately win.
What followed on the court over the next few seasons however was rarely linear.
There were signs of progress. Top 10 upsets mixed amongst disappointing losses, but there was a good amount of program buzz on and off the court. Then year three brought the program’s first postseason appearance in a decade, the WNIT. A meaningful step forward as a veteran group led by Bre Scott and Bryn Gerlich, along with freshman Bailey Maupin, helped guide the Lady Raiders back into March moments. The hope for the future had not been as high in decades.
But young rosters over the next two seasons failed to build on that momentum. Instead of another step forward, Texas Tech posted the two lowest conference finishes of Gerlich’s tenure, finishing 11th and 12th in the Big 12. Chatter amongst doubters grew.
A strong WBIT run to close last season reignited some optimism.
Then three rotation players, including the team’s leading scorer, and others on that team would find new homes. The outside public began to call for Gerlich’s job. All is not always as straight forward as it seems though and in truth, this movement may have been the start of a necessary reshaping of the roster and culture.
Gerlich responded just as decisively on the staff side. She reshaped her bench, bringing in Adrian Walters, Jaida Williams, Renae Boone and Ketara Chapel. New voices and fresh basketball minds that joined Erik DeRoo, the lone remaining on-court assistant from previous seasons.
And while pieces around the program continued to shift, the true pillars and foundation of what would be this turnaround roster did not waver.
Bailey Maupin. Denae Fritz. Adlee Blacklock. Jalynn Bristow.
Amongst other key role players stayed.
It wasn’t easy seeing so much change – especially ahead of most of their final years – but they came here for a reason and wanted to see it through.
Three West Texas natives and one in Fritz who had long embodied West Texas toughness, even before Lubbock became home. They were bought in to what Gerlich was trying to build. More than that, they were ready to do the work required to build it.
None represented that commitment more than Maupin.
In an era where movement is common and opportunities elsewhere are plentiful, the senior guard, now the fourth all-time leading scorer in program history, never seriously entertained the idea of leaving the program she grew up going to watch play as a kid.
“It was not a decision,” Maupin said when asked about staying at Texas Tech for her senior season. “In my heart, I knew that this is where I wanted to be. This is where I wanted to be since I was little. Texas Tech is home for me. It always has been and it always will be.”
Gerlich acknowledged that loyalty did not go unnoticed.
“There were people offering her things that we couldn’t match to be honest,” Gerlich said. “And she stayed.”
That kind of loyalty gave Gerlich and her staff a clear foundation to build around.
From there, the roster puzzle became about fit both positionally and team culture wise. Every addition came with something still to prove.
Gemma Núñez arrived as one of the nation’s assist leaders, but from mid-major Campbell. Snudda Collins was a former SEC starter, but had not played the previous season thinking basketball was done for her. Jada Malone was the kind of post presence the program had chased for years, but knee injuries at Texas A&M had bogged down her career to this point. Sidney Love offered experience as a three year starter and conference champion playing for UTSA, but would need to prove it at the power four level.
They’ve all become huge pieces of the rotation. Núñez in the top five of the Big 12 in both assist to turnover ratio and steals. Collins the sixth woman of the year in the conference as the team’s second leading scorer at over fifteen points per game off the bench. The list goes on from practice superstars, to starters everyone has excelled in their role.
“I just think that we did such a good job of recruiting this group and really finding the right character of kids,” Gerlich said. “They really wanted to come in and do something special, and they wanted to help this team.”
Nationally, this roster generated very little buzz in the offseason, mostly because people were too checked out on the program to even look closely at who had been brought in. This was not a transfer class that won headlines or offseason awards. Some national writers did not even realize Collins was on the roster until late in the summer. For those that were paying attention though, each player’s fit made perfect sense.
A trip to Germany in July, that Gerlich orchestrated herself, earning Texas Tech the right to represent Team USA at the World University games was a crucial early piece to the team’s development. They won Silver and came home with an internal belief that this could work.
It was a belief that soon stretched into official practices, and not so secret scrimmages. Early reports of a scrimmage win over Texas A&M, even with some key players not playing, spread hope to those choosing to listen.
And the most stark change of all came from the words of the players themselves.
“Nobody on this team is a loser,” newcomer Snudda Collins said leading up to the team’s first game of the season. “I hope not, or they’re in the wrong program.”
Outsiders would call it a bold things to say for a program that had not had a winning conference record in over a decade. But for anyone actually there, you could see in her eyes it was not feigned belief or confidence, she meant every word.
Gerlich saw the same thing daily.
“We literally don’t have to coach attitudes,” she said. “We don’t have drama off the court. We get to coach basketball.”
The shift continued into the season.
An early season win over UTSA was highlighted by a third quarter “scuffle” that gave this group their first chance to step up for one another when it mattered. A double technical moment seemed to break open what was a nine point game at the time to a 27 point blowout win for Texas Tech over the final 12 minutes of play. Culture.
“At that point, it’s just a matter of having your teammates’ backs,” Maupin said when asked about this moment after the game. “For Jalynn and Danae to go out and put their bodies on the line and show that they care, that’s only right for us to go back into the game and show them that we have their backs as well.”
Fast forward to the next week’s media scrum and asked what the team was focused on after a 3-0 start to the season, junior Jalynn Bristow didn’t waste her words.
“Going 4-0 tomorrow.”
Everyone paused waiting for more. A platitude about this or that. The usual canned answers you become used to in these scrums. But that was it, she gave nothing more and stood there staring back waiting for the next question. Not in a disrespectful or uninterested manner either, she meant it, winning was all they were focused on. It was the first bread crumb of what would become known as the team’s trademark 1-0 mindset for the season.
Yet another early sign the culture Gerlich had worked so hard to build was starting to speak through her players instead of only her. A crucial step to forming a winning culture.
Soon 3-0 became 4-0, became 6-0, became 7-0 and three wins over power conference teams in a row – including a 15 point comeback over Mississippi State.
A growing defensive identity began to form. The locker room continued to tighten rather than splinter when adversity surfaced.
Texas Tech opened the season 13-0 in non-conference play, a strong start but not one that fully quieted the outside skepticism. The Lady Raiders had shown flashes in November and December before in recent years after all, as they were so often reminded.
Then came a win to open up Big 12 play that made everyone look up.
The Lady Raiders knocked off No. 15 Baylor for the first time since 2011 and they did it on the road, a breakthrough that pushed Tech back into the national rankings for the first time since 2012. Two games later, Texas Tech reached 16-0, the best start in program history. Soon after, the Lady Raiders secured their first win in Morgantown since 2015, over a now Top 25 West Virginia.
The milestones kept coming too.
Texas Tech added a statement victory over top-10 TCU and later secured its first season sweep of Baylor since 2004. Even with the natural bumps along the way, including games the team felt slipped away, the results were undeniable.
By the end of Big 12 play Krista Gerlich’s team, which had been picked by her fellow coaches to finish 13th in the preseason poll, finished tied for fourth. Tech was also the only team to go a perfect 4-0 against the conference’s top three teams in the standings.
The Lady Raiders finished the regular season with their most Big 12 wins since 2005 and their highest overall win total since 2004. Ten weeks after reentering the polls for the first time in over a decade, Texas Tech is still there today.
“We thought we had a chance to do something special, but I’m not sure 25-6 was on our radar,” Gerlich said. “It’s been such a joy and such a great ride with this group. But we’re not done yet.”
The road to get to that joy though had taken a toll at times.
“There were times I had to really question my why,” Gerlich said. “This profession will do that to you. But this team reminded me why I do it. They reignited that passion and that fire in me.”
Nearly seven years after a lake trip to Lubbock became an interview instead, a program that once felt adrift is back in the conversation. A roster built more on fit than fanfare has delivered one of the most surprising runs in the country. And the coach who took the job when stability was anything but guaranteed is now being recognized across the sport.
In addition to her first Big 12 Coach of the Year award, Gerlich is one of 15 finalists for the Naismith National Coach of the Year.
When Maupin was asked about her head coach being in that conversation, her answer came perhaps as easily as that phone call over six years ago.
“I’m really, really happy that they finally put her on that list because I think she’s done an excellent job getting this program back to where it was and back to where it should be,” Maupin said. “And I think even long after I’m gone, she’s going to continue to do that. I’m super proud of her, and I think at the end of the day they’re going to make the right decision and that trophy is going to be headed home over there [to Gerlich.]”
What trophies come next will have to wait. Because despite all expectations of failure put on them, Gerlich has this team back where it belongs — busy playing games in March that matter.
About the author:
Shelby Hiliard has worked in sports media since graduating with dual master’s degrees from Texas Tech in 2014. She joined Red Raider Sports as a writer in 2025 and is also the host of Texas Tech Sports podcast “Seeing Scarlet” on YouTube.
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