There is a lot of chaos around Kansas State’s Saturday away game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders in Lubbock, Texas, but they aren’t the only team coping with heartbreaking news as conference play comes to a dramatic conclusion.
It was revealed late Tuesday night that JT Toppin, a leading candidate for Big 12 Player of the Year, would miss the rest of the season with the Red Raiders due to a ruptured ACL sustained against Arizona State.
JT Toppin injury update, and what it means for Kansas State against Texas Tech
Without Toppin, a lot of things might go right for K-State, who defeated the Baylor Bears at home to end a six-game losing streak, earning just their second conference victory and attempting to climb the Big 12 rankings.
The Wildcats scored their biggest victory margin in more than two months since the departure of former head coach Jerome Tang, and against a club that was only one possession away from defeating then-No. 7 Iowa State on their home court.
In addition, senior guard Nate Johnson scored a career-high 33 points, one point less than PJ Haggerty, who has now led the team in scoring for the past 15 games. Indeed, they were the first team to score 30 points apiece in a game since 2008, when they also faced Baylor.
And Saturday might be spoiler for the Wildcats if those numbers continue, particularly without Toppin on the other end of the floor.
Scouting Texas Tech: Who can step up, and how fast?
Since joining the Red Raiders prior to the 2024–25 season, Toppin has never been Texas Tech’s lone consistent scorer. But like Haggerty, he has scored more goals than anyone else on the team in seven of the last ten games, and in eight of those games, he has also been the club’s top assister.
LeJuan Watts takes leadership at the forward position in the absence of Toppin. Since the home defeat to then-No. 11 Kansas on February 2, Watts, a junior in his debut season with the Red Raiders, has failed to score in double figures.
Watts scored 20 points or more in three of the nonconference games he played in: Nov. 11 against Illinois, Dec. 16 against Northern Colorado, and four days later against Duke, which was ranked third at the time.
Watts has scored 19 points against Oklahoma State and 20 against BYU, demonstrating other moments of promise throughout Big 12 play, but he hasn’t been able to regain that level of play in the following four games.
Whether or whether the Red Raiders choose to open with a lot of guards and who gets regular minutes off the bench could determine the game’s fate.
A victory is feasible if they put on another offensive performance like the one they had against Baylor. There is potential now that Khamari McGriff and Andrej Kostic are back in the lineup and the bench has more guys than just two.
However, don’t count on an automatic upset bid while traveling to face a Big 12 opponent.
