McCasland Looks Forward to Home Finale Versus TCU
After handing the top 10 Iowa State Cyclones their first home loss of the year, and picking up their third win since the loss of JT Toppin, the #10 Texas Tech men’s basketball team will play their final home game of the 2025-2026 season as they’ll square off with the TCU Horned Frogs. TCU is 19-10 overall, 9-7 in Big 12 play and is also on a 3-game win streak last taking down Kansas State in Manhattan 77-68. Tech Head Coach Grant McCasland met with the media this afternoon to look ahead to the senior night season closer.
How This Team is Battle Tested After the 4 Top 25 Wins
“When you start the season, and I think people are seeing it now, we felt like we made this schedule because we felt like we did have one of the best teams in the country. That includes Josiah (Moseley), Luke (Bamgboye), Marial (Akuentok) being in the mix with JT and Christian (Anderson) and those guys that everybody sees play on a nightly basis. So I mean if you have those guys from the beginning you could see where this schedule would’ve been perfect for what we were doing. What I’ll say about this group, and this time of year, a lot of teams are finding ways to be done. I hate to say it, but they’re just tired. They’ve been around the same guys. And I think our team is really practicing with the most energy that I’ve felt all season long. And that’s a lot of fun and says a lot about where our team is and where we can grow and continue to get better.”
Challenges TCU Brings
“I mean, they’ve been winning. So six of their last seven games they’ve won. They’re eight of their last eleven. I mean they’re on a run, and they’re physical. (David) Punch, (Xavier) Edmonds, those two guys around the rim. They’re not shooting a great percentage, but they’re scoring and they’re doing it with elite physicality and offensive rebounding. It’s impressive. It really is. To see them put pressure on teams the way they are with their rebounding and how hard they’re playing, Coach Dixon’s done a tremendous job. So you got to start with their physicality and how hard they play defensively.”
If The Team Got Healthy At the Right Time
“The first conversation just about everyday is with Mike Neal our trainer. So, it’s been a regular occurrence this year. And he did say ‘man we’re in a good spot right now.’ Obviously in some ways we’re not in a great spot because we don’t have JT. That’s the truth of this. But considering who we have available, everybody is moving in a great direction and we don’t have any reason to think that we can take a step back. This feels like everybody is really healthy.”
Mastering Spacing and the Lobs in JT’s Absence
“We’ve played some really good defenses. Cincinnati and Iowa State are two of the better defenses in our league, and you can add TCU to that mix. They’re right there with them. It’s just the size around the rim and their effort of their guards we know that confidence is built when you share the ball against great defenses. That’s where we’ve built confidence is our ability to trust each other to make the right play. When we do that and our heart is to make people better, we play great basketball. Because we got plenty of guys that can score.”
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