Texas Tech’s road trip to Tempe, Arizona couldn’t have gone much worse than what played out late Tuesday evening. In a road game for Grant McCasland and the Red Raiders, the Texas Tech men’s basketball team fell short of its potential and lost to Arizona State in a shocking upset that was overshadowed by the frightening injury to JT Toppin.
So yeah, Texas Tech lost a road game against an underwhelming opponent and then also saw its best player injured in the process.
Tuesday evening was a complete and total mess for McCasland and the Red Raiders.
JT Toppin injured in Texas Tech’s road loss against the Arizona State Sun Devils
Prior to his injury, Toppin was setting the pace for Texas Tech as he put up 20 points, grabbed eight rebounds, and had four blocks against Arizona State.
Christian Anderson and Donovan Atwell were the only other Red Raiders to get into the double digits scoring as they had 18 points and 12 points respectively. Combined, Texas Tech’s top three scorers put up 50 points.
The rest of the Red Raiders combined for 17 points. Which isn’t exactly all that great when you consider how Texas Tech’s leading scorer just got injured.
With the loss, Texas Tech falls to 19-7 overall and 9-4 against Big 12 competition. Honestly, who knows how the rest of this season might unfold for Texas Tech as the Red Raiders have relied so heavily upon Toppin’s production to keep rolling. Texas Tech doesn’t have a deep rotation and there aren’t easy ways to replicate what Toppin provides to this team.
The Red Raiders will return home to Lubbock to play Kansas State on Saturday, February 21 at 1:30 p.m. Hopefully prior to then there will be some good news to talk about for the Red Raiders men’s basketball team.