Texas Tech basketball: Wildcards on the 2019-20 Red Raider roster

Kyler Edwards will play a much larger role

After being a nice piece off of the bench last year, sophomore Kyler Edwards has to play at a near all-conference level this year if Tech is going to replace the productivity it lost in the backcourt last year.  Filling the shoes of Matt Mooney won’t be easy but Edwards will need to be a similar caliber of offensive weapon.

It will be imperative that he is a more well-rounded player with the ball in his hands.  Last year, he was essentially a spot-up shooter as 31 of his 71 made field goals came from 3-point range.  That was especially the case after the start of Big 12 play as 50 of his104 shots attempts came from behind the arc.

What’s encouraging is that he averaged 12.3 points per game in the Bahamas (he put up 5.5 as a freshman) despite shooting just over 20% from 3-point range.  That proves his mentality has changed and he now understands that he must attack the rim.

Making Edwards a wildcard is the question of whether or not it is safe to assume that he will have the same type of improvement in his second year on campus as Jarrett Culver and Davide Moretti did.  Both saw their scoring jump by an average of around seven points per game after a year in the program and Tech would love to see Edwards follow the same trajectory.

But there is no guarantee that he will be able to be that type of player just because he’s a year older.  Until he shows us that he can handle an increase in responsibility, we will have to view him as a wildcard.