Texas Tech wasn’t the same team after JT Toppin tore his ACL on Feb. 17. The Red Raiders lost four of their final five games, including their Big 12 tournament opener and their NCAA Round of 32 contest against Alabama.
Head coach Grant McCasland and his program have had plenty of time to prepare for a new season, one that they’ll have to start without Toppin’s services.
Others will need to step up when No. 19 Texas Tech tips off against Jackson State on Monday in Lubbock, Texas.
Toppin, the 2024-25 Big 12 Player of the Year, is one of the sport’s elite forces when healthy. But he is on track to miss the start of the season, with McCasland telling CBS Sports in late October that the power forward has not returned to practice and will ramp up slowly when he does.
Texas Tech visited fellow top-25 preseason team Kentucky for an exhibition on Oct. 23 and lost 76-65. Only eight players saw the floor, but their coach does not feel his group lacks confidence.
“Nobody’s waiting for JT to get back, and I mean that respectfully to JT,” McCasland said afterward. “There’s a part of this where we know who we need to be. We did get 16 offensive rebounds in a game (without Toppin) … We do have an advantage at shooting threes, but what’s the leverage in the paint, honestly, is what we need to figure out.”
The Red Raiders are hoping for UCF transfer Jamichael Stillwell to win an eligibility case in court, but until then they’ll be relying on Darrion Williams and Donovan Atwell. Williams transferred back to Texas Tech after one season at North Carolina State; he put up 13.3 points and 6.5 rebounds per game in 67 starts in Lubbock from 2023-25.
Atwell was Texas Tech’s third-leading scorer last season (13.5 ppg).
The tandem of Cruz Davis and Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn project as starters in the backcourt. They each averaged more than 20 points per game last season, Gibbs-Lawhorn (20.7) at UNLV and Davis (20.1) at Hofstra. Davis had 10 points and seven assists against Kentucky.
Jackson State was picked sixth out of 12 in the SWAC preseason poll, voted on by head coaches and sports information directors, and two weeks after winning a suit for a fifth year of eligibility, Daeshun Ruffin was voted the SWAC Preseason Player of the Year.
It was an easy call, as Ruffin was dubbed the SWAC Player of the Year at the end of his second season at Jackson State. A former top-50 recruit who started his career at Ole Miss, Ruffin poured in 23.3 points per game, ranking fifth in Division I.
“I think a lot of people kind of got a misconception about who Daeshun Ruffin is as a player,” coach Trey Johnson said at SWAC media day. “Yeah, he can score the basketball, but more than anything he’s a playmaker, a guy with a high IQ. He also led the league in assists. I think we had a really good team before he came back, but with him coming back I think it makes us a dangerous basketball team at this point.”
Johnson, like Ruffin, is a native of Jackson, Miss. A former Jackson State guard himself, Johnson was promoted from associate head coach soon after Mo Williams left to join Kentucky as an assistant.
The Tigers also return Dorian McMillian (11.9 ppg last season) and Tamarion Hoover (5.9).