There were a couple of things that struck me as I was listening to one of the Grant McCasland press conferences this week. He made a mention about how there were no bigs at some point and he mentioned to Kellen Buffington that they needed some guys who they could practice and went out and found either Marial Akuentok or LaTrell Hoover (I honestly cannot remember and am not going to go back and find the presser).
This got my wheels spinning on a couple of things. The first is that I’ve made mention that McCasland went hard after Kingston Flemmings, I think it would be safe to say that it was down to Texas Tech and Houston with Flemings choosing Houston. I know that Buffington and the staff poured a lot of effort into Fleming and it would be difficult to imagine a team with Fleming on it. Perhaps, Jaylen Petty isn’t on the team if that’s the case.
But then I was watching the first half of the Miami (OH) vs. SMU play-in game and there was Jayden Toombs, another guy that Texas Tech was down to the last few schools, along with SMU. If you don’t remember, Toombs 6-10/230 and would have played a ton of minutes with JT Toppin and obviously would have started given the Toppin injury. Toombs obviously chose SMU and Texas Tech needed to pick up another big, which was likely Akuentok or Hoover. For the record, Toombs scored 20 and had 11 boards against Miami (OH), but for the year averaged 7 and 4.
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How different is the roster if Texas Tech lands those guys? The risk-reward of recruiting freshmen is that you sort of have to wait for a decision and you put all this effort and resources into recruiting them and then they don’t choose you. Flemmings was a phenom for Houston this year, averaging 16 points and 5 assists for a top 5 or so Houston team. I can’t imagine what he would have done along side Anderson with Toppin and Toombs.
I go back to the risk-reward situation, where those guys sort of decided really late and Texas Tech went all-in on Flemmings and Toombs. When you do that, there’s sometimes not a ton of time to adjust and go find another freshman guard and if I had to guess about the roster construction, they took a huge swing with Flemmings and Toombs and they missed. I’m not faulting the miss, I like it when you swing big and this was still a really good team.
And I did go back and look, Toombs committed to SMU on September 25, 2024, while Flemmings committed to Houston on November 14, 2024. If you are curious about the lone freshman as of right now who has signed with Texas Tech, DaKari Spear, he committed on October 13th.
Signing day that time of year is usually in the middle of November, so there was more time to find a replacement for Toombs, but big men are tough to find. While Flemmings likely waited until signing day to make a decision. Again, that left Texas Tech in a situation where they weren’t going to find a guard of Flemmings caliber. All of their eggs were in Flemmings’ basket. Petty wasn’t signed until August of 2025, so nearly a 8 months later.
What’s the point of this post, not completely sure other than Toombs triggered a memory of Texas Tech really going after him and sort of put him and Flemmings together and here we are. Perhaps this is a bit of wishing upon a star or thinking “what if”. Maybe this is just going to frustrate you. Maybe it’s explaining a bit about how I think the staff had greater aspirations for a different roster, but you can’t always make the player choose your program. That’s sort of how high school recruiting works.
You can expect me to post roster updates as they happen (or maybe a day or so after they happen) and we’ll track the roster comings and goings until it is complete.