Texas Tech Red Raiders news: Football lands commitment, basketball loses a legend, more

Here is your Texas Tech news roundup for June 3, 2024.

Defensive back commits to Texas Tech football

Gil Jackson, a defensive back from Missouri City, Texas announced over the weekend his intention to play for the Texas Tech football program. The 6-foot-2, 175-pounder is rated by 247Sports as a 3-star prospect.

Jackson is the No. 119 corner in the nation and the No. 194 overall player in Texas for the class of 2025 according to 247Sports. He also holds offers from the Air Force, Army, San Diego State, Tulsa, UTEP, Vanderbilt, and others.

As a junior, Jackson registered 12 tackles, three interceptions, and six pass deflections, according to Max Preps. He's the 13th member of Tech's 2025 recruiting class which ranks No. 22 in the nation.

Texas Tech basketball legend Jim Reed Passes Away

Saturday, the Texas Tech basketball program announced the passing of Red Raider legend Jim Reed. He was 90 years old.

Reed played for Tech from 1953-56. During that time, he registered 1,689 points and 1,333 rebounds.

A member of the program's inaugural Ring of Honor class, Reed averaged a double-double in every season of his Red Raider career. The Arkansas native was Tech's first Associated Press All-America selection and earned Border Conference Player of the Year in 1955-56.

Reed averaged a remarkable 14.0 rebounds per game. second all-time in program history. That number included a career-high 16.2 per game as a junior. He also owns the program's single-game record with 27 rebounds in games against Texas and Eastern New Mexico he posted six games with 20 or more rebounds in his career.

A 6-foot-4 forward, Reed averaged a career-high 22.3 points per game as a junior and 20.9 in his senior season. He also posted 17.8 points per game over the course of his entire career which is 10th in program history in scoring after leading the team all four years he was with the program.

Plans exist for new Texas Tech baseball stadium

According to an insightful article from Don Williams of the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Texas Tech has created plans for a new baseball stadium. However, many hurdles exist before those plans can become reality.

"...we would someday like to renovate or construct a baseball stadium that's going to have greater fan amenities and more premium seating opportunities. There is that demand," Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt told Williams.

According to the article, Texas Tech is not financially ready to begin this project given that the athletic department is about to take on debt for the current renovations to the south endzone at Jones Stadium and the constraints that are about to be placed on the university by the recent N.I.L. settlement agreed to by major universities and conferences last month.

Big 12 hands out record revenue

Speaking of big money, this year it is being reported that the Big 12 has handed out a record payment to its member institutions for the 2023-24 school year. Conference commissioner Brett Yormark told Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports that the league distributed $470 million to its member institutions. That's an average of over $33.5 million per school.

One factor to keep in mind, though, is that each individual school received a smaller share of the pie this year due to the addition of Cincinnati, Houston, Central Florida, and BYU. Speaking of expansion, Yormark told Dellenger that further expansion is not currently on the table for the conference but that the Big 12 is "open for business".