Down JT Toppin, No. 13 Texas Tech faces revived Kansas State
A crossroads arrives for No. 13 Texas Tech on Saturday afternoon with a home game against a Kansas State team that got a shot in the arm from its coaching change.
The Red Raiders (19-7, 9-4 Big 12 Conference) and Wildcats (11-15, 2-11) collide in Lubbock, Texas, with both teams in a vastly different frame of mind than last week.
For Texas Tech, which enters in fifth place in the Big 12, Saturday represents the start of life without JT Toppin, the preseason All-American and 2025 conference Player of the Year. His season ended Tuesday night when he suffered a major knee injury in the Red Raiders' loss at Arizona State.
Toppin ranks third in the Big 12 in scoring (21.8 points per game) and leads it on the glass (10.8 rebounds). Except for Duke's Cameron Boozer, no other player in the country averages a 20-10 double-double.
"JT Toppin is genuine," coach Grant McCasland said Friday. "He's an unbelievable competitor. To be in the doctor's office when he got the news was crushing."
Without Toppin, the Red Raiders will likely deploy either 6-foot-11 Luke Bamgboye or 6-foot-8 Josiah Moseley in the frontcourt alongside LeJaun Watts.
The Red Raiders will also lean on the talented guard trio of Christian Anderson, Donovan Atwell and Jaylen Petty. They are a big reason Texas Tech leads the Big 12 in 3-pointers made (11.4 per game) and is second in 3-point accuracy (38.9%).
As enticing as the long-range attack might be for Texas Tech, having a dominant big man inside like Toppin was symbiotic with open 3-point shots becoming available.
Kansas State is no longer reeling under interim coach Matthew Driscoll, who was elevated when the Wildcats fired Jerome Tang in his fourth season after starting 1-11 in the conference.
The Wildcats romped past Baylor 90-74 in Driscoll's debut on Tuesday as P.J. Haggerty (34 points) and Nate Johnson (33) became the program's first teammates to score 30 in the same game since 2008. Haggerty is the Big 12's second-leading scorer with 23.7 points per game and had been one of the few bright spots in a dismal season.
The Wildcats have been solid all season offensively, averaging 80.6 points per game, and won for the eighth time Tuesday when scoring at least 90.
Where K-State has scuffled is slowing opponents down: The Wildcats surrender 80.4 points per game and rank toward the bottom of the conference in rebounding.
Opponents have topped 80 points in nine of 13 conference games, although that trend changed in the last two -- a 78-64 loss at Houston and the triumph over Baylor.
"Our defense (Tuesday) set the tone," Driscoll said. "I thought it led to us playing with some easy situations. I thought our guys put themselves in positions to be really successful by getting downhill and playing at the rim based on whether they were going to switch or they were not going to switch. Guys let their defense dictate their offense, as opposed to letting our offense determine if we're going to discard or not."
Besides Haggerty, who also leads K-State with 5.1 rebounds per game, Johnson averages 12.0 points, with a team-best 4.6 assists and 2.2 steals.