Big 12 Player of the Year JT Toppin is spurning the NBA Draft and returning to Texas Tech for the 2025-26 season, he announced Wednesday. Toppin earned consensus All-American honors as a sophomore star for the Red Raiders and is well-positioned to be college basketball’s preseason Player of the Year.
Toppin’s return ensures Texas Tech will remain a force on the national level after reaching the Elite Eight as a No. 3 seed in coach Grant McCasland’s second season. The 6-foot-9 forward averaged 22.3 points, 10.6 rebounds and 1.9 blocks over Texas Tech’s final 15 games and rose to No. 15 in the CBS Sports NBA Draft Prospect Rankings.
The Red Raiders rank No. 13 in Gary Parrish’s way-too-early Top 25 And 1 for the 2025-26 season. Getting Toppin back is a win not just for Texas Tech but college basketball as a whole. At a moment of unprecedented player compensation in the sport, the Red Raiders kept Toppin from testing the NBA Draft waters or entering the transfer portal.
CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander reports that Toppin is in line for a $4 million NIL payday with his return.
While Toppin was well-positioned as a potential a first-round pick in the NBA Draft, he has plenty he can still improve before turning pro. The former four-star prospect, who played his freshman season at New Mexico, is still adding versatility to his game after being used primarily as a traditional post player in the 2024-25 season.
Texas Tech deployed Toppin as the the roll man in pick-and-roll situations with great success on the way to a 28-9 record. Toppin also got ample touches on the block in post-ups and scored 37 buckets on offensive rebounds in 2024-25, per Synergy.
Though his 3-point attempts increased from 32 as a freshman at New Mexico to 55 this past season, Toppin’s percentage ticked down from 34.4% to 32.7%. If the Dallas, Texas native can improve his outside shooting and build a larger body of work defending players on the perimeter, he could draw even more interest from NBA scouts next year.
