After facing Little Rock in their first of three exhibition games, Kentucky now shifts their focus to the Texas Tech Red Raiders, who were seen as a top 10 team heading into the season, but without one star player, they are seen as a fringe top 20 squad.
Texas Tech will be without star forward JT Toppin on Friday against Kentucky in Rupp Arena. The 6-9 forward, who was on his way to an All-American season in Lubbock, tore his ACL in February and was out for the remainder of the season. Now, as we get closer and closer to the start of the 2026-27 regular season, Toppin 'is not even close' to practicing for the Red Raiders as his ramp-up process has been taken slow and methodical, which means he won't be playing in the exhibition against Kentucky on Friday. Head coach Grant McCastland talked about the All-American candidate's status.
"I do think he's ahead of schedule," McCastland told Jon Rothstein. "He does do some individual work in terms of skill development, but we're still trying to progress to a point when he can get to practice. We're really going to ramp him up slow in practices and we're not even close to him practicing right now."
Without Toppin, the ceiling of this Texas Tech squad lowers, but that's just a testament to how good Toppin is. Texas Tech will be led by veteran guard Derrion Williams, who returns after having an All-Big 12 season, as well as veteran transfers Donovan Atwell and Cruz Davis. It's clear how much Toppin means to what the Red Raiders can accomplish this season because with him, they are a top 10 team. Don't let him being out fool you, because the team's experience and depth can make things interesting on Friday, even without a guy as great as Toppin. With multiple fift-year guys, there is valuable experience all over the roster that will really test Kentucky, especially at the guard spots.
As we saw last week against Little Rock, execution is a work-in-progress for a Kentucky offense that has a very, very high ceiling with how many shooters they have. The Wildcats had an impressive showing defensively and their length really seemed to bother the Trojans. It will be interesting to see how much more connected Kentucky is on the offensive end on Friday, because we know all about what they are capable of there.
Now, Kentucky will have a bigger test on their hands with a very experienced Texas Tech squad that, even though they are without their star player, is no team to mess around with. Exhibition season can get wild with teams not running their full offensive sets and limiting what they show ahead of the season, so it will be interesting to see what both teams present on Friday.
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