Grant McCasland talks Texas Tech basketball on first day of practice for 2025-26 season
Grant McCasland talks Texas Tech basketball on first day of practice for 2025-26 season
I went on record last October that I felt like the Texas Tech basketball team would be able to compete for the Big 12 Conference title and would (at the very least) make the Sweet 16.
Each of these proved to be true. While Houston ran away with the league crown, the Red Raiders were the only team to knock off the Cougars during the regular season — on the road sans Grant McCasland and JT Toppin, no less. And Tech not only proved my March Madness prediction true, the team improved upon it. Were it not for some missed free throws and Walter Clayton Jr. going nuclear, the Red Raiders would’ve been in the Final Four.
Trying to pinpoint this year’s team’s potential is much trickier. The Red Raiders were picked to finish third in the Big 12 (second by the media), enter the year ranked Top 15 in both preseason polls and return consensus All-American and reigning Big 12 player of the year Toppin, but beyond he and Christian Anderson, it’s an almost entirely new cast of characters.
What stood out about last year’s team was depth, or at least the potential of it. This squad has that as well, but it’s far more inexperienced. Newcomers Donovan Atwell and Tyeree Bryan are the lone seniors on the team who will see significant action. The majority are sophomores and freshmen, many of whom are being asked to adjust their games to fit McCasland’s vision for the squad.
So what, exactly, is Texas Tech’s potential this year? I tried to simulate it.
Can Texas Tech basketball win the Big 12 title?
In an effort to find out where Texas Tech will fit into the Big 12 hierarchy, I predicted every single conference game for the 2025-26 season. Below is the breakdown of those projections — using the Big 12’s own scheduling ruberic as a guide — coming up with the final records for all 16 teams.
All game predictions were done blindly, so no effort was made to break ties or second guess anything. It was all gut reaction, and the results were a bit surprising.
2025-26 BIG 12 MEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM SCHEDULE PREDICTIONS
OPPAZASUBAYBYUUCFCINCOLHOUISUKANKSUOSUTTUTCUUTAWVUAZXLLLWLLLLWWWLLLLLLLASUWWXWWLWLWWWWLWWLWWBAYWLXLLWLWWLWWWLWLLLLLBYULWLWXLLLLLWLLWLLLLLUCFWWWWXWLLWWWWLWWLLWLCINWLLWLWXLWWWWWLWWLLWCOLWWWWWWWXWWWWWWWWLLWHOULLLLWLLLLXWWLLLWLLLISULLLWLLLLLXWLWLLLWLLKANLWLLLLLLLLWXWLLWLLLKSUWLLWLLLWLLWXLWWLLWLOSUWWWWWLWLWWWWWXWWLLWTTUWLLLWLLLLWLWLLLXLLLTCUWLWWWWLLWLWLWLWWXLLUTAWWLWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWXWWVUWLWWLWWLLWWWLWLWWLXTOTAL14-44-1410-814-46-127-112-1614-413-514-411-74-1414-48-101-177-11
Getting five teams tying for a share of the regular-season title is highly unlikely to happen. Random upsets will pop up here and there. However, due to the Big 12’s lack of a true round robin, it’s never been more possible to have this kind of front-loaded standings, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
I refuse to try to use the Big 12’s tie-breaker criteria to figure out seeding — it’s a lot and requires game scores — but having my projected top five teams (Houston, Arizona, Texas Tech, Kansas and BYU) all finishing 14-4 shows where the separation is in the league. That is to say, the Big 12 will be top heavy this year with a defined bottom throughout.
Among those five teams, Texas Tech and BYU have the toughest home-and-home draws in the league. Tech plays BYU, Houston and Colorado twice while the Cougars get Tech, Iowa State and Utah. Based on the predictions, Tech has the tougher draw, getting two of the other top five teams twice while BYU gets just one (Iowa State just missed the cut for this). Arizona and Kansas play each other twice and Houston gets Tech twice.
Can Texas Tech basketball make a deep March Madness run again?
I also sorted out Texas Tech’s nonconference schedule. I came up with a 24-7 regular season record for the Red Raiders, the same record they had last season.
Thus, the Red Raiders would be in a similar situation to 2024-25, when they were in contention of a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. What Tech didn’t have last year was good nonconference wins, and I have them beating Arkansas, which should help in that regard. I have them losing at Illinois and to Purdue and Duke, for the record.
So what’s my holdup on saying Texas Tech can match, maybe even better, last year’s results, if everything else is more-or-less equal?
Guard depth. Beyond Anderson, Atwell and Bryan, Tech’s guards are all either freshmen or sophomores who were seldom used last season. They can all get great experience throughout the regular season, but it’s hard to win in March with young teams. McCasland needs the likes of Jaylen Petty and Nolan Groves, Leon Horner and Jazz Henderson to provide good, quality minutes on both ends each and every game.
McCasland has been stingy with bench usage at Texas Tech, usually sticking with seven-man rotations. He’ll have to loosen the reins a bit to get the young players the necessary experience to be helpful in the postseason.
Could this team wind up being just as good or better than last year? Sure. Unlike last year, though, I’m not ready to make a judgement on where the ceiling is. I need to see it to know where this can go.
