Grant McCasland on Texas Tech basketball’s offseason, look ahead to 2025-26 season
Grant McCasland on Texas Tech basketball’s offseason, look ahead to 2025-26 season
Grant McCasland may have finally found the final piece to the Texas Tech basketball team’s 2025-26 roster.
A few days after missing out on Australian prospect Ben Henshall, the Red Raiders received a commitment from 2025 point guard and Seattle native Jaylen Petty, whose commitment was reported by multiple outlets Saturday night.
Petty (6-foot, 165 pounds) is rated a four-star prospect by 247Sports, coming in as the 126th-ranked prospect in the country, the No. 15 point guard and top-rated player in the state of Washington. Petty led Rainier Beach to the state championship in 2025 averaging 24.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 3.2 steals per game.
Petty had previously committed to New Mexico before Richard Pitino’s departure to lead Xavier. He then flipped his commitment to Stanford in April before re-opening his recruiting in mid-June.
McCasland said in June the Red Raiders would “for sure” add another player to the roster before the 2025-26 season begins. Rumors had Tech linked to Henshall, who went through the 2025 NBA Draft process, to fill that spot. Henshall signed a two-year deal with the Perth Wildcats of the NBL earlier this week, confirming he would not be the guy.
Henshall’s non-addition left a void for the Red Raiders, who needed a backup point guard to go with Christian Anderson Jr. Anderson had a stellar summer playing for the German national team in the FIBA U19 World Cup and expected to take on the lion’s share of minutes at point guard. However, Anderson spent the majority of his freshman season splitting ball handling duties with Elijah Hawkins and excelled playing off the ball as well.
Adding Petty gives Texas Tech another option in the point guard department. The Red Raiders also have redshirt freshman Jazz Henderson back for another year.
Both Petty and Henderson (5-foot-11) will be the shortest players on Tech’s roster next season. Anderson (6-2) will play as much as humanly possible, but now McCasland has multiple options of how to fill in the minutes when he needs a rest, gets in foul trouble or give opponents a different look.
