Texas Tech basketball: Five bold predictions for the 2020-21 season

Terrence Shannon Jr. will play his way into being a lottery pick

If the Red Raiders were stocks, the player I’d invest in immediately would be sophomore Terrence Shannon Jr.  That’s because he could be in for the type of sophomore jump that we saw Jarrett Culver make in 2018-19.

That year, the Lubbock native saw his scoring increase from 11.2 to 18.5 points per game and he earned Big 12 Player of the Year honors.  What’s more, he played his way into the NBA Draft lottery after starting the season a fringe first-round projection at best.

The same will be true of Shannon this year.  That’s because the Chicago native already has all the physical attributes that the NBA craves and when those line up with an expected refinement in his basketball skills, the sky will be the limit for his game.

"“T.J.’s growth has come in a lot of ways,” Beard said last month.  “First of all, just physically.  Another offseason and another year in that weight room…he’s transformed his body…Mentally, he’s continued to grow.  He’s studying the game with basketball IQ and just getting tougher and more experienced.”"

Last season, Shannon was a bit of a wildcard every night.  He had 14 double-digit scoring games but he never strung more than four of them together and he had only one over the final eight games of the year as he was replaced in the starting lineup but Kevin McCullar.

If Shannon can be more consistent this year, he will see his numbers and his draft stock soar.  And like Culver, he may be playing on a team that makes a deep run in March, which will only serve to boost his profile around the basketball world.

If Shannon’s offseason work on his jumper translates to the court and he can hit around 40% of his mid-range jumpers and somewhere near 32% of his 3-point attempts, he will be nearly unstoppable given his explosive first step off the dribble.

Thus, he could easily see a seven or eight-point jump in scoring this year similar to what Culver did as a sophomore.  That would put him at around 16 points per game and those numbers would open plenty of eyes in basketball circles.  So don’t be shocked if next summer, we are talking about Shannon going in the first half of the NBA Draft.  And if that’s the case, it will almost certainly mean that this upcoming Texas Tech basketball season was a rousing success.