Regarding Aaliyah Chavez, I posted this in a different thread back in late August:
I resigned myself a few weeks ago to believing strongly that Aaliyah Chavez will end up choosing Texas Tech.
I had for quite a while believed Texas stood a very strong chance at landing her based on the many unofficial visits she and her family have made to Austin, always attending football and basketball games when Texas plays at Texas Tech, all the reels/stories on Instagram that our assistant coaches post about her (they still do), being relatively close to home, having a few of her club teammates on our roster, and meeting her criteria about wanting to win and playing for a head coach who will be there all 4 years she's in college.
But, then Texas Tech softball went out and spent $1 million on Stanford transfer pitcher NiJaree Canady who is from Kansas and doesn't even hail from the state of Texas. That just opened my eyes as to what one of their donors is willing to do to win. I expect the minimum price for landing Chavez will be at least $1 million per year, and most likely more. She is from Lubbock and I now believe that Texas Tech will just refuse to allow her to leave their back yard IF money/NIL is a huge priority (which I believe it is). Her father seems to be running the show; he has talked a lot about all the hours over the years that he has spent coaching her. I get it; he has put in a lot of work to help his daughter's future; I'm sure she wants to "repay" him somehow for his dedication, sacrifices, and hard work.
When she narrowed her list to UCLA, South Carolina, Texas, LSU, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech, it wasn't difficult to see which school stood out like a sore thumb when it came to NOT having a winning program. In her interview with On3, she mentioned that she likes/wants to win and play for a head coach who will be there all 4 years to coach her in college; Krista Gerlich at Tech is in the final year of her 5-year contract and there has been no news of any kind of contract extension; she's never come close to sniffing an NCAA tournament bid, and the talent level to turn things around this year isn't there, IMO. If Chavez plans to sign in November, she will have no clue about Tech's season progression and the plans for Gerlich's future. Yet, she placed Texas Tech in her final six finalists.
Something happened in 2023-24 that might even surpass NIL as a huge factor, although it has an effect on NIL. Look how many class of 2023 players became the face of their college programs as true freshmen -- Juju Watkins, Hannah Hidalgo, Madison Booker (probably wouldn't have been had Rori Harmon not been injured). Chavez seemed to "like" so much of Watkins news out on social media all of last season; so, she was paying attention. Based on returning talent come 2025-26, the only program where Chavez would instantly become the face of the program as a true freshman would be Texas Tech. Being the face of a program brings a lot more NIL opportunities than simply being a teammate on a star-studded roster.
