What does Texas Tech basketball need out of the transfer portal for 2024-25 season?
As we move through the offseason, it's time to take a look at what the 2024-25 Texas Tech basketball team could look like.
As of Thursday morning, six players from last year's team are expected to return to the Red Raiders next season. Five of these players are scholarship players and Division I teams can have as many as 13. Tech is also expected to have two walk-ons, including the one commitment the team has received so far this spring.
What should Grant McCasland be looking for in the transfer portal, which closes May 1? Here's a shopping list with the biggest needs.
Build around Darrion Williams
Darrion Williams was Texas Tech's best all-around player last season. The mission here is pretty simple: go into the transfer portal to build next year's team around Williams' many talents, which range from steady defense to an elite shot maker.
Williams will have more defenses keying on him next season as they also saw his abilities up close. More offensive threats to pair with Williams, Chance McMillian and Kerwin Walton, the better.
Playmaking point guard
One of the top priorities on the list for next season will be a point guard, specifically one that can make plays either for himself or others.
With Joe Toussaint (exhausted eligibility) and Pop Isaacs (portal) both gone, the Red Raiders are losing 52% of their assists from last year. Williams had the most assists (82) among the expected returners while Toussaint and Isaacs combined for 264 helpers between them.
Not only were those two the top two scorers this season, they also generated much of the ball movement. That's a double whammy that can be hard to replicate.
UP TO DATE: Texas Tech basketball transfer portal tracker: Who's in, who's out for Red Raiders?
Good defensive players
McCasland came in known as a defensive-minded coach, one who learned some of the tricks of the trade from former Tech coaches Chris Beard and Mark Adams. Surprisingly, the Red Raiders were among the best offensive teams in the country. And the defense?
There's no way to sugarcoat it. Texas Tech was a mediocre defensive team last year. At best. The team finished the season 65th in adjusted defensive efficiency, according to KenPom. Not a bad ranking considering the likes of Baylor, Oregon, Illinois and Kentucky were behind them, but the Red Raiders' defensive rating of 100.1 was the worst since the 2014-15 season. It was propelled by the team's best offensive efficiency rating (117.4) in the KenPom era.
The goal now is for McCasland and his staff to find that happy medium, keeping the elite offense while clamping down on the other end. An inability to get stops when it mattered led to a number of losses this season, such as the setback at TCU. Being a good defensive team can also help greatly when shots aren't falling, which would've gone a long way against NC State in the NCAA Tournament.
The big man conundrum
As good and important as Warren Washington was for the grand scheme of the Red Raiders, there's no denying that the defense was as its best during the last part of the regular season when McCasland opted to change the team's defensive tendencies rather than running the same stuff it did when Washington was on the floor.
In a nutshell, the Red Raiders' strength came when everybody was playing-with-their-hair-on-fire active. The level of activity from all five guys led to blowout wins over BYU, Oklahoma State and West Virginia and gave the team a big victory over Baylor to close the regular season. These all came without the 7-footer being available, so there's a decision to be made here.
Yes, the Red Raiders were small last season, particularly without Washington. Size does matter to a point, and that's one area Tech should focus on in the transfer portal. However, the question is whether that size needs to be a true centerpiece to the team's identity, or if the team should go back to the active-hands defensive approach while having some size at their disposal when the situation calls for it?
Right now, 6-foot-8 Eemeli Yalaho is the lone true big man on the roster. Yalaho gained some more confidence when Tech switched its system late in the season. Devan Cambridge is also expected back and the Red Raiders utilized him as the small-ball big man more frequently than they did Washington while Cambridge was healthy. Whether the team does that this season will depend on Cambridge's mobility and strength as he comes back from the knee injury.
Either way, the Red Raiders will need a few options in the post, it just comes down to what kind of makeup the team is going to have.
Depth, depth and more depth
The biggest piece to this new puzzle is the Red Raiders will need to have more than two reliable bodies off the bench. A lack of true depth was apparent from the beginning of the season, and became more pronounced when Kerwin Walton slid into the starting lineup after Cambridge's injury.
Lamar Washington wasn't an offensive threat. Robert Jennings had some really good moments mixed with some tough games. Yalaho was still raw and young. KyeRon Lindsay didn't want to play defense.
In fairness, it's rare for teams to be able to go 10 deep without any sort of drop off on at least one end of the floor. And McCasland kept a pretty tight rotation throughout the entire year, not just conference play. But if last year showed anything, it's the Red Raiders will need more than just one guard and one big off the bench. Guys wear down over the course of the season and injuries happen. Being a deeper team can also go a long way in improving the defense. Using fresher legs never hurt anybody.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: What does Texas Tech basketball need out of the transfer portal?
