Texas Tech basketball: Players we are happy to see leave the Big 12

TCU: Desmond Bane

TCU guard Desmond Bane and his massive shoulders are out of eligibility.  That is something that every Red Raider fan is happy about.

The 6-foot-6 Indiana native was as dominant of a scorer as there was in the Big 12 when he got hot and Tech fans felt the full brunt of his power when the Red Raiders went to Fort Worth this year.  Granted, the effort Tech put forth in the 65-54 Horned Frogs’ win would have made it tough for Chris Beard’s team to beat the Cavazos Jr. High girls’ developmental team that night.  But Bane made sure his team wasn’t going to lose.

Hitting 10-15 field goal attempts, he hung 27 points on the boys in scarlet and black and he made it look easy.  It was one of the most explosive scoring performances we’ve seen against a Beard-led Red Raider team.

Though Bane had just seven points when Tech opened up a can of revenge in Lubbock, he did have a 21-point game inside the U.S.A. back in 2018.  Overall, he had four double-digit games in eight career meetings with Tech but he showed this year in Fort Worth just what he was capable of.

His loss is going to be immeasurable to a TCU team that should be pretty awful next year.  Losing the 16.6-points-per-game scorer, the Frogs are bringing in just the 8th-best recruiting class in the Big 12, one that features only three three-start signees thus far.   Without Bane, it’s tough to envision Jamie Dixon‘s team having all that much punch in 2020-21.