Al Pinkins leaving the Red Raider program will lead to the staff's second vacancy after Chris Ogden left earlier in the year to take the UTA Head Coaching job.

Pinkins will join a Florida Gators program that Texas Tech defeated in the NCAA Tournament last season on the Red Raiders way to the Elite 8. Florida finished with a 21-13 record last season. The Gators were a 6-seed in the NCAA Tournament and lost 69-66 to 3-seed Texas Tech.

The Gators hired Armon Gates as an associate head coach, but Gates elected to join the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The move was confirmed on Tuesday when Gates was introduced at a press conference.

Pinkins will join the Gators as the associate head coach.

While losing assistants does seem like a bad thing, it does have a silver lining. Chris Beard hires really good coaches that other people want to steal. Then, he teaches them how to lead and they go and get better jobs elsewhere. If Chris Beard could make everyone associate head coach and pay them a million dollars, there might be more retention, but that's implausible.

The good news is that the Texas Tech men's basketball team has a full head of steam right now end everyone wants to siphon off a little of that energy.

That won't slow Chris Beard down, though.

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