Now at full strength, Texas Tech basketball looks like a legitimate Big 12 contender

We are still in the infancy of the college basketball season. However, it is tough to blame Texas Tech fans for being excited about what we've seen from the Red Raiders in the first three games of 2024-25. In fact, many feel like this season's team has the look of a Big 12 contender.

That talk only intensified Wednesday night after Tech dismantled a decent Wyoming team 96-49 in Lubbock. One of the big storylines from that blowout was the play of point guards Elijah Hawkins and Christian Anderson, each of whom made their season and Texas Tech debuts against the Cowboys.

Hawkins, a senior transfer from Minnesota, put up 7 points, 5 assists, and 2 steals in just 13 minutes of action. Meanwhile, Anderson, a true freshman from Atlanta, Georgia, managed to post 9 points, 4 assists, and 3 steals in 26 minutes.

However, it wasn't just the offensive contributions that head coach Grant McCasland pointed to when talking about his two point guards. Rather, it was what they allowed the team to do on defense that he liked most.

"Don't underestimate the ability to rotate guys so that they can play as hard as they can while they're out there," McCasland said. "...To have nobody play more than 25 minutes across the board, I think allows you to do that. It shows that the depth of this team is our strength and if we can continue to do that, get better and share the ball, and have games like tonight."

Prior to this game, McCasland was limited to a seven-man rotation, and at times, his team had defensive lapses, many of which were attributable to fatigue. In fact, in the first two games, Chance McMillan averaged 36.5 minutes per game, Kerwin Walton averaged 35, and Darrion Williams averaged 32.5.

That's not a sustainable workload for players who are going to compete in the Big 12. However, with a nine-man rotation like we saw on Wednesday night, the defensive intensity was off the charts.

It started with on-ball pressure, which Hawkins and Anderson applied for the duration of their minutes. Previously, McCasland had lamented his team's lack of pressure on the basketball and he specifically said that part of the game would improve when his two point guards were able to return to the floor.

Though it was only one game against a team picked to finish in the back half of the Mountain West Conference, McCasland's remarks proved to be prophetic as Tech forced 25 turnovers in the game. If that's the type of defense that this team is going to play, then the Red Raiders could be legitimate contenders in the rugged Big 12.

Right now, Tech is 13th in the nation in offensive efficiency and 15th in defensive efficiency according to the KenPom.com ratings. The only other Big 12 teams in the top 15 in each of those categories are Houston and Kansas.

Yes, the Red Raiders are yet to play a team that will challenge for an NCAA Tournament spot this season. That will happen next week, though, when McCasland takes his team to Brooklyn, New York to play Saint Joseph's and either Texas or Syracuse in the Legends Classic.

Still, all we have to go on thus far is what we've seen and through three games, and Texas Tech has passed the eye test early on. What's more, after getting our first glimpse of what this team looks like with almost all of its key pieces in place, we now see what McCasland has built and it looks a lot like a team that could make a ton of noise in the best conference in the country.