Texas Tech basketball: What to expect from new transfer Jamarius Burton

Let’s take a look at how Wichita State transfer guard Jamarius Burton will fit into the Texas Tech basketball program.

Chris Beard’s Texas Tech basketball program has landed one of the best players in the NCAA transfer portal in Jamarius Burton, formerly of Wichita State.  But the question is whether or not he will figure into next season’s plans given that he’s an undergraduate transfer.

With Burton being just a junior next season, Red Raider fans have even more reason to pay close attention to next month’s NCAA vote on whether to grant all student-athletes a one-time transfer without penalty regardless of their classification.

Needless to say, should that change be enacted, it will usher in a new era of college athletics.  Of course, Texas Tech fans will be in favor of such a rule given what we went through during the most recent basketball season.

UNLV transfer Joel Ntambwe, a sophomore who joined Tech last summer, was three times denied an eligibility waiver by the NCAA despite the fact that there was a coaching change at UNLV.  What’s more, he was the only one of five transfers from that specific program to be denied an eligibility waiver and it’s believed that bitterness on the part of people at UNLV in regard to being spurned by Beard after just 16 days on the job back in 2016 played a major role in that decision.

Back in 2016-17, Beard’s first year at Tech, the Red Raiders also had Tommy Hamilton and Brandone Francis sit out after transferring in from DePaul and Florida respectively.  Now, the days of the one-year penalty could be over and that’s something that people across the college sports spectrum seem to be in favor of.

"“I see a great confidence that our membership has that this is the right thing to do”Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice president of Division I, told ESPN’s Jeff Borzello, “but you need to have the right parameters to make sure that it is not a pay-for-play model, that we don’t create an employer-employee relationship, that we protect the integrity of the recruiting process.”"

Even some big-name head coaches are speaking up in favor of the proposed change.  Recently, Florida head football coach Dan Mullen said that he sees the benefit of the rule change.

"“I just think it would be much cleaner for everyone if it was, here’s the rule,” Mullen told Demetrius Harvey of Sports Illustrated. “You know? You’re immediately eligible and you can play, you get the one time transfer waiver or you’re not and there’s no waiver process to create kids to make things up or one kid gets it and one kid doesn’t.”"

Much like Beard and the Red Raiders, Mullen was frustrated last season when one of his players, Brenton Cox Jr., was not granted an eligibility waiver after transferring from Georgia but his former teammate, QB Justin Fields, was allowed to play right away for Ohio State.

That’s the next part of the Jamarius Burton saga as we wait and hope to see that he’s going to be allowed to be part of the 2020-21 season.  But whenever he is allowed to suit up for the Red Raiders, he will be expected to be a huge contributor.  So let’s take a look at what type of player Beard has landed and how he might fit into what is already a stacked Texas Tech roster.