(Photo: Spencer Barnes/WCSN)
TEMPE – With the NCAA Tournament just a month away, No. 13 Texas Tech went four deep off the bench against Arizona State men’s basketball. It’s a rotation choice that made sense for the Red Raiders at this point in the season, as they have been in a position to think about postseason lineup combinations.
But one constant in Texas Tech’s rotation is the three‑headed monster of JT Toppin, Christian Anderson, and Donovan Atwell taking up the lion’s share of the minutes. Each player ranks inside the Big 12’s top seven in minutes per game, with Anderson leading the conference at 38.9. Toppin didn’t log his usual workload because he exited with a non‑contact leg injury with six minutes left in the game.
With how productive each of them have been offensively, it is easy to see why the Red Raiders lean on this trio. Three days earlier, that firepower helped Texas Tech beat an Arizona team that held the No. 1 ranking. The Sun Devils’ shaky defense heading into Tuesday night, paired with the challenge of facing Texas Tech’s offense, helped explain why ASU was a 7.5‑point underdog. But in what became ASU’s (14‑12, 5‑8 Big 12) best win of the season, the defense rose to the occasion against the Red Raiders (19‑7, 9‑4 Big 12) in a 72‑67 victory.
“Probably the best defense we played all year,” Hurley said. “We, I thought, overall, did a pretty good job guarding those guys.”
Prior to the injury, Toppin shot 44.4 percent from the field, below his season mark of 55.3 entering Tuesday. He also committed four turnovers, with only Anderson finishing with more at seven.
During the Sun Devils’ postgame pressers, everyone from head coach Bobby Hurley to the players at the podium expressed sympathy for Toppin. Sophomore guard Noah Meeusen echoed that sentiment, though he noted the injury ended up helping ASU not just on defense but on offense as well.
“Prayers up to him. It’s never nice to see that when a great player like that falls down,” Meeusen said. “Him falling down really opened up a lot for us inside too. Also on the defensive end it makes it easier for us.”
Meeusen logged a career‑high 37 minutes against the Red Raiders, a workload Hurley said stemmed from the value he brings on defense. One of his more memorable defensive highlights of the night came with 9:24 left in the second half.
After grabbing a defensive rebound, freshman guard Jaylen Petty pushed the ball in transition and tried to finish a coast‑to‑coast layup. But Meeusen was right behind him and elevated for the chasedown block, a play that drew an appropriate roar from the Desert Financial Arena crowd.
“His defense is why it’s hard for me to take him off the floor,” Hurley said. “He’s so active on defense, and he knows he plays with a lot of fire at that end of the floor.”
When Toppin left, the Red Raiders turned to redshirt junior forward LeJuan Watts. Watts logged two minutes and 37 seconds from that point before returning to the bench. Over that span, he missed both of two field‑goal attempts and committed one turnover.
Texas Tech subbed out Watts for Anderson with 3:26 left, trailing 67–56, and Anderson drilled a 3‑pointer on his first possession back. The sophomore guard went on to score seven of the Red Raiders’ 11 points during the 11–2 run that cut the deficit to 69–67, tightening a game the Sun Devils had largely controlled.
Even with that push, ASU still had a bit of a cushion — not in the score, but in the margin for error it had created by controlling most of the half. That steadiness kept the Sun Devils from unraveling as Texas Tech made its charge.
“We built enough of a cushion that we would have had to do almost everything wrong to lose or to see the game go to overtime,” Hurley said. “We’ll be working on end of game situations for the next two or three days.”
Atwell is one of three seniors for the Red Raiders. The guard has also been the team’s most efficient perimeter shooter, hitting 44.6 percent from beyond the arc before Tuesday, the best mark of any Texas Tech player with at least 55 three‑point attempts. And while his 50 percent from deep on Tuesday exceeded his season average, he was limited to 2‑for‑6 shooting from three in the first half.
For the Red Raiders, it was an uncharacteristically sluggish night across the board on offense. Texas Tech’s 67 points were its fourth‑lowest total of the season, and its 17 turnovers were a season high. And three days after knocking off a team that held the No. 1 ranking, the Red Raiders could not recreate that level of sharpness. ASU kept them uncomfortable long enough to finish the job and closed out a win that disrupted the stability Texas Tech relied on all year.
“They just beat the number one team in the country,” Hurley said. “You beat a team like that, you got to feel like, if you play the way you’ve been playing, that you could compete with any team.”
