Texas Tech basketball: Underrated players from the dark ages of the program

Jaye Crockett

It’s a shame we can’t clone the college version of Jaye Crockett and have him play for Chris Beard because he was the ultimate positionless player for the Red Raiders about half a decade before Beard made that term synonymous with his philosophy.

Playing at Tech from 2010-11 to 2013-14, the Clovis, New Mexico native did just about everything on the court for his team.  He was at times asked to be his team’s offensive facilitator given the lack of such players on his teams.  Other times, he had to play out of position at power forward, where he was often giving up height and weight to the players he defended given that he was just 6-foot-7 and 210 pounds.

He was also willing to come off the bench despite being his team’s best player.  In fact, he was the Big 12 6th man of the year according to College Hoops Daily as a junior in 2012-13.  That year he averaged 11.9 points and a career-high 6.5 rebounds per game.  He also came up with 1.3 steals and handed out 0.6 assists per game.

But as a senior, he entered the starting five permanently and had one of the best all-around seasons in this era of Texas Tech basketball history as he put up 13.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.2 assists, and one steal per game.  That year, he became just the fifth player in school history to record 1,000 points, 600 rebounds, 100 assists, and 100 steals for his career.

Lanky and freakishly athletic, Crockett was the epitome of a positionless player that season as he started all 32 games.  His stats were good enough to earn him third-team All-Big 12, which was as good as any player on a team that went just 14-18 overall and 6-12 in conference play could have expected to earn in the way of postseason recognition.

Jaye Crockett never had the same head coach at Texas Tech for two-straight years.  That’s one reason that his fantastic skills were wasted and why he is largely overlooked when talking about the best Red Raiders in the modern era of the program.

If only he had played for Chris Beard, he might have been talked about in the same vein as Jarrett Culver and Zhaire Smith.  But instead, he will forever be one of the most underrated players to ever don the Double T.