Texas Tech forward JT Toppin, a second-team All-American and the Big 12 Player of the Year, will return to the Red Raiders next season, he announced Wednesday. And Toppin will be back in Lubbock for a big payday: He’s expected to receive more than $3 million in name, image and likeness earnings, a source briefed on his return said.
His decision bolsters a Texas Tech squad that reached the Elite Eight and came agonizingly close to defeating eventual national champion Florida in the NCAA Tournament. The Red Raiders led the Gators by 10 points with 5:32 to play before losing 84-79.
Toppin, who transferred from New Mexico last offseason, averaged 19.3 points and 11 rebounds per game in four tournament games. He ended the year with double-doubles in seven of Texas Tech’s final eight games.
With him, Texas Tech ranks No. 12 in The Athletic’s way-too-early Top 25 for 2025-26.
Toppin’s NIL deal comes against the backdrop of a pending NCAA settlement that could open the door for schools to pay players directly through revenue sharing. If approved, the House v. NCAA settlement would allow schools to start paying players July 1, but a decision has not been made.
The Athletic spoke to men’s basketball coaches, general managers and administrators in March to get a sense of this offseason’s player market. It’s expected a school will need to spend between $5-8 million to field a competitive high-major team.
“You need $7 million to be in the mix, when last year $4 million could get you a really good team,” a general manager of a high-major program said. “Everybody’s coming up with all this money to front-load in addition to the back end of rev share. So if your rev share is $2.7 million from the school, people are trying to raise $5 million in addition to that, where you can pay to retain guys, plus go out and spend a whole bunch of money for transfers.”
Toppin’s decision is a sign of the times
If you can close your eyes to the number and absurdity that a player can make more next season in college basketball than he could in the NBA — Toppin, at best, is a second-round pick — the benefit is that with the ability to pay players like Toppin seven-figure amounts, college basketball is going to have more talented players. In the past, Toppin would have probably been an 80-20 lean toward staying in the NBA Draft if he got a second-round grade. Now the smart business decision is to return, make more money than he would have in the NBA next season and hope to improve his pro stock.
Texas Tech is now just competing with other schools, and after already losing second-leading scorer Darrion Williams to the portal, the smart business decision for the Red Raiders was to do whatever they could to retain Toppin.
The skyrocketing budgets are also the reason some of the best international prospects are coming to college basketball, such as Illinois’ Kasparas Jakučionis or BYU’s Egor Demin. That’s good for the college game. The player movement this creates is frustrating to fans, coaches and even sportswriters, and there’s work to be done on figuring out how to slow the churn of roster movement. But getting a second-team All-American to return to school is a big win for Texas Tech and college hoops.
(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
