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Red Raider return
Texas Tech announced JT Toppin is expected to return for the 2026-27 season. How big is the news? Plus: the CBS Thanksgiving Classic has a tip time, Nikola Kusturica's recruitment continues to heat up, and more.
Sam Lance
July 09, 2026
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Good morning! Even in the quietest stretches of the offseason, there’s sometimes a storyline that can alter a season. Let’s get to the news:
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1. JT Toppin is back!
Before his ACL tear this past February, Texas Tech big man JT Toppin was neck-and-neck with Cam Boozer in the National Player of the Year race.
The former Big 12 POTY and Second Team All-American was averaging 21.8 and 10.8 rebounds, and Toppin was showing no signs of slowing down. But then, he tore his right knee against Arizona State.
Quickly, Texas Tech’s national title hopes dwindled, and the Red Raiders were subsequently eliminated by Alabama in the Round of 32. Toppin didn’t get a chance to compete in the postseason.
It looks like he’ll get that opportunity next year.
Typically, a player expected to miss most of a season would redshirt to preserve a year of eligibility. But under the new five-for-five rule, there's little reason for Toppin to do that. Instead of four seasons of eligibility from 2024-27, the big man now has five seasons from 2024-28, so there's no need to redshirt and save an extra year.
There’s still no word on Toppin’s exact timeline for returning to the court, but typically recovery from an ACL tear takes 8-12 months, and his injury took place on Feb. 17. A mid-February return would have Toppin back for the last stretch of Big 12 play and then the postseason.
It's a huge win for Texas Tech to have one of the country's best players back, but it'll be interesting to see how he fits with a completely new roster that will have already spent months playing without him.
2. CBS Thanksgiving Classic set
We’ve known for a while the teams that would be competing in the 2026 CBS Sports Thanksgiving Classic, but now we have an official tipoff time.
