Women's Basketball
DeRoo, Erik
Erik DeRoo
- Title:
- Director of Player Development
Erik DeRoo joins the Lady Raider Basketball program after spending five seasons as assistant coach and creative recruiting coordinator for the Abilene Christian women’s basketball team.
“With the ever-evolving presence of creative digital recruiting, we set out to create a position that not only will help develop players on the court, but off the court, in the classroom, prepare them for the professional world, and also help build their brands and of course the Texas Tech brand—more specifically the Lady Raider brand,” Gerlich said. “In my eyes, we hit a home run hire in Erik DeRoo as he is extremely seasoned in all of these areas. Erik’s passion, vision and knowledge align perfectly with what we have in store for Lady Raider basketball. I’m thrilled that he has joined our staff, and our program just took a huge step forward in restoring our historic Lady Raider tradition.”
During his time at ACU, the Wildcats won the 2016-17 Southland Regular-Season championship before advancing to the second round of the WNIT, after a victory over Big 12 opponent Oklahoma State. He was also a part of the 2019 Southland Conference Tournament championship, which led ACU to their first-ever DI NCAA Tournament appearance in school history. At the conclusion of the 2019-20 campaign he was named to the WBCA 30 Under 30 list and was also a finalist for the 2019-20 DI Assistant Coach of the Year.
DeRoo’s responsibilities at ACU included point guard development, where he oversaw the development of the 2019 Southland Tournament MVP and 2019-20 Southland Conference Player of the Year, Brea Wright. He also led all junior college recruiting efforts, where he signed the first two NJCAA All-Americans in ACU’s DI history. Other responsibilities included traditional high school recruiting, scouting reports, creating all recruiting mail-outs and directed the male scout team players. Most importantly for his new role at Texas Tech, he oversaw all elements of ACU women’s basketball social media efforts including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. He helped grow the program’s brand from the 12th-most-followed program in the Southland to the most-followed on Twitter alone by a significant margin. He also has demonstrated the ability to build a personal brand as he currently has over 69,000 followers on TikTok, which makes him one of the most-followed coaches in women’s basketball on the platform.
Prior to his time at ACU, DeRoo spent two seasons as a graduate assistant for the Fresno State women’s basketball team. The Bulldogs advanced to the 2nd Round of the WNIT during his two seasons in Fresno and posted consecutive top-three showings within the Mountain West standings. Fresno State was 23-10 overall and placed third in its league in 2014-15 and went on to finish second in the Mountain West in 2015-16 with a 22-12 overall record and a 15-3 mark in conference play.
DeRoo played collegiate basketball at the University of Texas at Tyler and then McPherson College (KS), which is where he received his bachelor's degree in health and physical education in 2014. He also earned his master's in kinesiology with an emphasis in sport psychology in 2016 from Fresno State.
He and his wife, Kim, were married during the summer of 2017, and have one daughter, Tatum, who was born in April 2019.
“With the ever-evolving presence of creative digital recruiting, we set out to create a position that not only will help develop players on the court, but off the court, in the classroom, prepare them for the professional world, and also help build their brands and of course the Texas Tech brand—more specifically the Lady Raider brand,” Gerlich said. “In my eyes, we hit a home run hire in Erik DeRoo as he is extremely seasoned in all of these areas. Erik’s passion, vision and knowledge align perfectly with what we have in store for Lady Raider basketball. I’m thrilled that he has joined our staff, and our program just took a huge step forward in restoring our historic Lady Raider tradition.”
During his time at ACU, the Wildcats won the 2016-17 Southland Regular-Season championship before advancing to the second round of the WNIT, after a victory over Big 12 opponent Oklahoma State. He was also a part of the 2019 Southland Conference Tournament championship, which led ACU to their first-ever DI NCAA Tournament appearance in school history. At the conclusion of the 2019-20 campaign he was named to the WBCA 30 Under 30 list and was also a finalist for the 2019-20 DI Assistant Coach of the Year.
DeRoo’s responsibilities at ACU included point guard development, where he oversaw the development of the 2019 Southland Tournament MVP and 2019-20 Southland Conference Player of the Year, Brea Wright. He also led all junior college recruiting efforts, where he signed the first two NJCAA All-Americans in ACU’s DI history. Other responsibilities included traditional high school recruiting, scouting reports, creating all recruiting mail-outs and directed the male scout team players. Most importantly for his new role at Texas Tech, he oversaw all elements of ACU women’s basketball social media efforts including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. He helped grow the program’s brand from the 12th-most-followed program in the Southland to the most-followed on Twitter alone by a significant margin. He also has demonstrated the ability to build a personal brand as he currently has over 69,000 followers on TikTok, which makes him one of the most-followed coaches in women’s basketball on the platform.
Prior to his time at ACU, DeRoo spent two seasons as a graduate assistant for the Fresno State women’s basketball team. The Bulldogs advanced to the 2nd Round of the WNIT during his two seasons in Fresno and posted consecutive top-three showings within the Mountain West standings. Fresno State was 23-10 overall and placed third in its league in 2014-15 and went on to finish second in the Mountain West in 2015-16 with a 22-12 overall record and a 15-3 mark in conference play.
DeRoo played collegiate basketball at the University of Texas at Tyler and then McPherson College (KS), which is where he received his bachelor's degree in health and physical education in 2014. He also earned his master's in kinesiology with an emphasis in sport psychology in 2016 from Fresno State.
He and his wife, Kim, were married during the summer of 2017, and have one daughter, Tatum, who was born in April 2019.
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