Much of the preseason expectation surrounding the Texas Tech basketball team revolved around the latest transfer portal class Grant McCasland was able to bring to Lubbock.
With JT Toppin and Christian Anderson returning as the foundation from last year’s Elite Eight squad, the additions of Donovan Atwell, Tyeree Bryan, LeJuan Watts, Luke Bamgboye and Josiah Moseley were expected to lift the Red Raiders back into national championship contention.
Coming off the 86-56 drubbing at the hands of top-ranked Purdue, many fans were already jumping off the bandwagon, but the 20th-ranked Red Raiders showed Wednesday against New Orleans they still have plenty of potential to tap into.
An uneven first half gave way to a dominant second, Texas Tech eventually emerging with an 82-50 win largely on the backs of Toppin (19 points, 16 rebounds) and Anderson (23 points, five assists).
Bamgboye, though, showed that McCasland’s yearning for a two-big lineup isn’t a pipe dream. The VCU transfer big man and Toppin just haven’t spent much time together on the floor, so the learning curve is still wide.
Things started to look more fluid against New Orleans, Toppin finding ways to be a playmaker without having one foot in the paint, and Bamgboye being ready for dump-offs when the defense collapses on Tech’s two leading scorers.
By game’s end, Bamgboye had 13 points, was 7-of-10 at the free throw line (he’s now 14-of-19 on the season after shooting 48.6% last season with the Rams) and collected five rebounds, four assists and four blocks.
McCasland knows that Bamgboye’s conditioning isn’t where it needs to be, the process being halted with Bamgboye getting hurt this summer and not practicing again until the second week of the season, but the coach knows the importance of the 6-foot-11 Englishman to the team.
“I think he plays the game with a real will, urgency and passion,” McCasland said of Bamgboye, “and when he gets in shape, he’s going to be tough to deal with because of his athleticism.”
Bamgboye’s presence on the court has changed how Toppin operates offensively. With less space in the paint to go to work on one-on-one matchups, Toppin’s approach now, McCasland said, has to be more about making plays all around rather than just for himself, something he’s more than capable of doing. That, Toppin admits, is an adjustment, one he and Bamgboye are still figuring out themselves.
“Just knowing I got somebody there fighting with me,” Toppin said. “He was hurt for a minute, we still building that chemistry, but it helps a lot just knowing he’s taking the load off me a little bit, and he plays hard and I’m sticking with him.”
Atwell (13 points) has been the most consistent transfer to this point of the season. Much of that comes from his availability at practices. Moseley has yet to play this season while Bryan (six rebounds) and Watts (12 points, eight rebounds) are still finding themselves on both ends of the floor with their new team.
Watts, who was expected to be the Darrion Williams-like No. 2 next to Toppin, has not found his rhythm yet, which McCasland attributes to his defense.
“He’s feeling some frustration,” McCasland said of Watts. “He hadn’t been great defensively and I’ve been on him, and I think that’s impacted his offense. That’s the truth. I’m asking him to do every little thing right and right now he’s. … he’s trying. I’ll say that, but it’s not close to what he can be.
“I think everybody knows we have high expectations for LeJuan, but I’m not going to tolerate him not competing on the defensive end. Period. And I’m going to make him do everything our team needs in order to win, period.”
Getting smacked by Purdue, a team Texas Tech was expected to compete with, was a wake-up call of sorts to some. Not McCasland. He knows his team still has plenty more to give on both ends of the floor.
“The more we can lean into the fact that it may be somebody else’s night,” McCasland said, “and how hard you have to play to help each other, we just gotta buy into it. The faster we do it, the better we’ll be.”
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Transfers still finding their rhythm with Texas Tech basketball
Reporting by Nathan Giese, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
