What Big 12 Player Of The Year JT Toppin's Return Means For Texas Tech
Texas Tech forward JT Toppin celebrates after scoring a basket during the second half against UNC ... More Wilmington in the first round of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, March 21, 2025, in Wichita, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
JT Toppin could have played for any men's college basketball program next season. If the 6-foot-9 forward entered the transfer portal, the Texas Tech star would have had no shortage of suitors. He could have also declared for the NBA draft. Instead, Toppin announced via Instagram Wednesday that he will return to the Red Raiders.
The move is a boon for Texas Tech, a school that's historically not known for its basketball prowess. But the Red Raiders were able to keep Toppin, a second team Associated Press All-American, thanks to a financial commitment to basketball and the program's success in recent seasons. Texas Tech reported nearly $3.2 million in Name, Image and Likeness deals in the first two years those arrangements were allowed, according to a July 2023 Dallas Morning News article. Meanwhile, CBS Sports reported Wednesday that Toppin could earn about $4 million in NIL deals next season, although those figures are estimates and not publicly disclosed.
Toppin, a Dallas native, was ranked 111th in the high school class of 2023, according to the 247Sports Composite. He played his first season at the University of New Mexico, where he averaged 12.4 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game and was the Mountain West Conference's freshman of the year. After the season, he participated in the NBA draft combine before transferring to Texas Tech.
This past season, Toppin led the Red Raiders with 18.2 points, 9.4 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game and made 55.4% of his field goals. He averaged 22.2 points and 10.6 rebounds in the season's final 15 games, including 19.2 points and 11 rebounds in four NCAA tournament games. Toppin was named the Big 12 Conference player of the year and helped Texas Tech advance to the NCAA tournament's Elite 8, where the Red Raiders blew a 10-point lead with 5:26 remaining in an 84-79 loss to Florida. The Gators ended up winning the national title, defeating Houston in Monday night's championship game.
Despite the heartbreaking ending, it was an impressive season for Texas Tech, which was unranked in the preseason Associated Press poll and picked to finish seventh in the Big 12. The Red Raiders went 28-9 overall and 15-5 in the Big 12, good for second in the league behind Houston. The Big 12 was the nation's third-best conference behind the SEC and Big Ten, according to analyst Ken Pomeroy.
Plenty of time remains until college basketball rosters are set for next season. The transfer portal is open through April 22, while players who enter the NBA draft have until June 15 to withdraw and return to college.
Still, Toppin's return could be among the most consequential decisions considering he will likely be a favorite to win the national player of the year award. Purdue guard Braden Smith is the only first team All-American who is likely to return to college, while Memphis guard PJ Haggerty is a second team All-American who could be back. RJ Luis, the Big East player of the year at St. John's, has declared for the NBA draft and also entered the transfer portal. Luis is the No. 72 prospect in the NBA draft, according to ESPN, which had Toppin as the No. 42 prospect before his announcement.
Texas Tech is still waiting to hear about Darrion Williams, a 6-foot-6 forward who averaged 15.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.6 assists this past season. Williams declared for the NBA draft and entered the transfer portal, although he could return to Texas Tech. The Red Raiders also have freshman Christian Anderson, who averaged 10.6 points as a freshman last season.
In two season as Texas Tech's coach, Grant McCasland has gone 51-20, made two NCAA tournaments and nearly advanced to the Final Four. With McCasland's coaching acumen and Toppin back, the Red Raiders should be in the mix in the Big 12 race again next season and enter with a top 25 national ranking.
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By focusing only on educational expenses, the NCAA was able to reinforce the notion that collegiate athletes are amateurs who may not receive pay for participating in athletics, despite making money for their schools. A year later, in 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in a separate case, Alston v. NCAA, that the NCAA violated antitrust laws by limiting the amount of education-related benefits, such as laptops, books and musical instruments, that universities could provide to their athletes. The ruling challenged the NCAA's amateurism model while opening the door for future lawsuits tied to athlete compensation. It also burnished the plaintiffs' case in House v. NCAA, compelling college athletics' governing body to take part in settlement talks. What were some of the key changes that took place in college sports after the Supreme Court's decision in Alston v. NCAA? Following Alston, the NCAA permitted universities to dole out several thousand dollars in what's called ' education benefits pay ' to student-athletes. This could include cash bonuses for maintaining a certain GPA or simply satisfying NCAA academic eligibility requirements. But contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court's Alston decision didn't let college athletes be paid via NIL deals. The NCAA continued to maintain that this would violate its principles of amateurism. However, many states, beginning with California, introduced or passed laws that required universities within their borders to allow their athletes to accept NIL compensation. With over a dozen states looking to pass similar laws, the NCAA folded on June 30, 2021, changing its policy so athletes could accept NIL compensation for the first time. Will colleges and universities be able to weather all of these financial commitments? The settlement will result in a windfall for certain current and former collegiate athletes, with some expected to receive several hundred thousands of dollars. Universities and their athletics departments, on the other hand, will have to reallocate resources or cut spending. Some will cut back on travel expenses for some sports, others have paused facility renovations, while other athletic departments may resort to cutting sports whose revenue does not exceed their expenses. As Texas A&M University athletic director Trev Alberts has explained, however, that college sports does not have a revenue problem – it has a spending problem. Even in the well-resourced Southeastern Conference, for example, many universities' athletics expenses exceed its revenue. Do you see any future conflicts on the horizon? Many observers hope the settlement brings stability to the industry. But there's always a chance that the settlement will be appealed. More potential challenges could involve Title IX, the federal gender equity statute that prohibits discrimination based on sex in schools. What if, for example, a university subject to the statute distributes the vast majority of revenue to male athletes? Such a scenario could violate Title IX. On the other hand, a university that more equitably distributes revenue among male and female athletes could face legal backlash from football athletes who argue that they should be entitled to more revenue, since their games earn the big bucks. And as I pointed out in a recent law review article, an athlete or university may challenge the new enforcement process that will attempt to limit athletes' NIL compensation within an acceptable range that is based on a fair market valuation. The NCAA and the conferences named in the lawsuit have hired the accountancy firm Deloitte to determine whether athletes' compensation from NIL deals fall within an acceptable range based on a fair market valuation, looking to other collegiate and professional athletes to set a benchmark range. If athletes and universities have struck deals that are too generous, both could be penalized, according to the terms of the settlement. Finally, the settlement does not address – let alone solve – issues facing international student-athletes who want to earn money via NIL. Most international student-athletes' visas, and the laws regulating them, heavily limit their ability to accept compensation for work, including NIL pay. Some lawmakers have tried to address this issue in the past, but it hasn't been a priority for the NCAA, as it has lobbied Congress for a federal NIL law.
