The 19-year old leader of Sweet 16-bound Texas Tech has a favorite basketball player and it may surprise you.
JT Toppin, the Big 12 Player of the Year and a big reason the Red Raiders are still dancing in March, is a huge fan of a key member of those title-winning Chicago Bulls teams in the 1990s.
No, it’s not Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen.
Toppin was born five years after Dennis Rodman’s last season in the NBA in 2000 but the passion for the “Worm” is real. Both played high school basketball in Dallas, both stand at 6-foot-7 and both appreciate the lost art of rebounding. Toppin might be the only person in college basketball who would genuinely pick Rodman as his favorite player.
“JT would rather have 20 rebounds than 20 points any day of the week,” said former NBA player Ramon Sessions, who is Toppin’s agent and the president of On Time Agency. “You’ll see JT on a regular basis with a Dennis Rodman shirt. He wears his hoodies. Their games are very relatable from an energy standpoint.
“He watches film on Dennis Rodman. Like, it’s crazy.”
Toppin’s love of rebounding and his growing offensive prowess has been critical for Texas Tech this season, setting up a Thursday Sweet 16 game against 10-seed Arkansas. Toppin is averaging a double-double through two NCAA Tournament games, playing a critical role in the Red Raiders’ second-round win over 11-seed Drake. Toppin went for 25 points and 12 rebounds, with 19 of those points (on 9 of 10 from the field) coming in the first half.
This is why Texas Tech had to have Toppin, who spent a year at New Mexico and was the Mountain West Freshman of the Year before entering the transfer portal. And perhaps at least partially why Texas is already out of the NCAA Tournament and its coach, Rodney Terry, out of a job.
Toppin was invited to the NBA Draft combine after his standout freshman year, but also entered the transfer portal to keep his options open. He loved his time at New Mexico but liked the idea of the national spotlight that came with playing in a bigger conference. The interest in a bouncy, athletic big man who played hard and came with little ego was understandably big.
“Value wise, he was the hottest one on the market,” said Sessions, who played 11 years in the NBA before becoming an agent. “People can speculate what that looks like, but he was the hottest name on the market. From a NIL standpoint, he was in a good place.”
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Texas quickly emerged as the reported favorite to land Toppin. The school was actively working a relationship with Toppin’s high school coach, Brandon Thomas, to help make it happen, according to sources familiar with the situation. Texas wanted Toppin and it’s easy to imagine the Longhorns faring much better than a First Four exit that ultimately resulted in Terry’s dismissal after three seasons.
Texas boosters, which went all-in on NIL last season with the football program, didn’t seem as willing to open up for Terry. It was an open secret in college basketball circles that Texas AD Chris Del Conte had his eye on other coaches before feeling like he had to promote Terry following an Elite Eight run as the interim coach in 2023. Coming into this season, it was known that Terry would likely have to make another NCAA Tournament run to hold on to his job, but the money didn’t seem to pour in to help make that happen. Texas fired Terry last week and is expected to commit more resources to new coach Sean Miller.
There is a newish phenomenon within this current era of college athletics where supporters can help nudge a coach out by turning off the NIL cash faucet. It famously happened to former Auburn football coach Bryan Harsin, according to sources, who didn’t connect with the school’s top boosters and felt the impact of not being able to compete for top players. His replacement, Hugh Freeze, smartly rectified that issue and has the money flowing to help sign what was just the nation’s 8th-rated transfer portal class.
Texas basketball sources say an asking price upwards of seven-figures ultimately proved too expensive for the Longhorns. Sessions didn’t want to get into specifics on Toppin’s NIL compensation, but if Texas was claiming it wasn’t willing to spend that much, there were plenty others who were.
“There was way more money thrown on the table for him. Way more,” he said. “But what does that do when you’re sitting home in March? When you’re in the Sweet 16 now, you’re getting this, you’re getting all this other different stuff that comes with it and you’re getting to showcase who you are.”
A big reason Texas Tech won the Toppin sweepstakes? General manager Kellen Buffington, who is well-known in Dallas circles after running camps and operating TheTB5Reports scouting. Buffington was a big fan of Toppin’s long before he was a top transfer portal target for a bevy of Power Four programs. That belief in Toppin and the accompanying relationship led to a mutual trust between all parties. Toppin wanted the freedom to grow as a basketball player, to be able to show off he could be more than just a Rodman-esque rebounder, and believed Buffington and Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland when they said he could do that in Lubbock.
That belief paid off for everyone on a terrific season that isn’t over yet. Texas Tech, an advanced metrics darling, has all the makings of a team that can make a Final Four run and beyond if it can keep playing like it has. The ability to go all-in for Toppin when when others couldn’t is a big reason why.
“He just has a knack for winning,” Sessions said. “You put JT with Texas, you put JT with Kansas State, you put JT with whoever, JT is gonna come out on top and he’s gonna impact winning.”
Texas Tech knows that well.
