No. 10 Texas Tech will look to avoid a third Big 12 Conference loss in the past four games on Saturday afternoon when it travels to Lawrence, Kan., to face a Kansas team that is unranked for the first time since 2021.
Texas Tech (21-7, 12-5) is coming off a 69-61 loss to No. 4 Houston on Monday, in which the Red Raiders played without their second- and third-leading scorers in Chance McMillian and Darrion Williams, who average a combined 30 points per game.
Only six players registered minutes for the Red Raiders as they shot just 17 of 57 from the field and 6 of 30 from 3-point range.
While McMillian and Williams remain questionable with lower-body injuries leading into Saturday’s matchup, Texas Tech still has its leading scorer and rebounder in JT Toppin, who is averaging 17.2 points and 9.2 rebounds per game.
Toppin has led the team in rebounding in the last six games and has been the top scorer in five of those games. One of those performances was a career-high 41 points in a 111-106 double-overtime victory over Arizona State on Feb. 12.
While being without McMillian and Williams has cost the Red Raiders, coach Grant McCasland insisted the return process wasn’t as simple as some make it out to be.
“I just don’t make any decisions as to who plays,” McCasland says. “Every situation is so unique, you know, it really is. Everybody has their own version of what they can go through in order to continue to play. I just don’t have any conversations with anybody about that.
“Sometimes you understand it and it’s clear in regards to what the best thing is for them, and sometimes it’s not clear. It’s a really hard decision to decide what to do in these scenarios.”
Kansas (19-9, 10-7) enters Saturday’s matchup following back-to-back wins over struggling teams Oklahoma State and Colorado. Despite this, the Jayhawks were still stripped of their Top 25 ranking this week, having lost four of their first six games in February.
Kansas hit rock-bottom during a two-game road trip last week that saw the Jayhawks lose to Utah and BYU, with the 34-point loss to BYU being the largest of the Bill Self coaching era.
Nonetheless, Kansas’ return to the win column was a much-needed boost for a team still hoping to make a deep run in March.
“(Our confidence) is actually much higher than the Utah road trip,” Self said. “I think these wins will do wonders for us. We’re 2-0; our season started against Oklahoma State. Because we did all we could do to screw up the conference season, all we can do is finish strong to prepare us for postseason. So we’re 2-0 right now; that’s how we’re looking at it.”
Hunter Dickinson has emerged as Kansas’ primary scoring option down the stretch, as the fifth-year center has led the team in scoring in six of its last eight outings.
Dickinson paces the team in both scoring and rebounding for the season with an average of 16.8 points and 9.8 rebounds per game. Zeke Mayo is the only other Jayhawk who averages double figures in scoring, at 14.3 points per game.
–Field Level Media
