Will update the OP with targets as they become known. Feel free to discuss guys who enter the portal or any other relevant hoops news in here.

Top targets/commits

Drake guard Kevin Overton - 6'5, 180 pounds. From Oklahoma City, OK. Averaged 11.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game as a freshman. Shot 44% from the field, 34.6% from deep (5.1 attempts per game) and 79.5% from the free throw line. Played for Texas Tech assistant Luke Barnwell at Sunrise Christian Academy. 3 seasons of eligibility remaining. ***Committed to Texas Tech***

Minnesota guard Elijah Hawkins - 5'11, 160 pounds. From Washington, DC. Averaged 9.5 points, 3.6 rebounds and 7.5 assists per game in 2023/24. 7.5 assists per game was good for tied 2nd best in the country. Played first two seasons at Howard. One season of eligibility remaining. ***Committed to Texas Tech***

Pittsburgh center Federiko Federiko - 6'11, 220 pounds. From Helsinki, Finland. Averaged 4.7 points and 5.2 rebounds per game in just over 21 minutes a night. He started 26 games at Pitt this past season and 53 games over the past two years. ***Committed to Texas Tech***

New Mexico forward JT Toppin

Washington State wing Jaylen Wells

Loose connections/Committed elsewhere
Utah State forward Great Osobor - OV to Texas Tech, committed to Washington

Dayton forward Nate Santos - returned to Dayton

UNC-Wilmington wing Trazarien White - OV to Texas Tech, committed to TCU

Indiana State guard Julian Larry - 6'3, 185 pounds. From Frisco, TX. Averaged 11 points, 2.8 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game in 2023/24. Shot 46.2% from 3 on limited attempts (42/91). - committed to Texas

Indiana Wesleyan wing Javan Buchanan - 6'7, 210 pounds. From Lafayette, Ind. NAIA 1st Team All-American. Averaged 20.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists in 2023/24. OV to Texas Tech April 27-28. - committed to Boise State

Wyoming wing Brendan Wenzel - 6'7, 208 pounds. From San Antonio, TX. Averaged 11.6 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game in 2023/24. Shot 40.5% from the field, 37.7% from deep (5.4 attempts per game) and 80.9% from the free throw line. 1 season of eligibility remaining. ***unofficial visit to Texas Tech April 2*** - committed to TCU

UIC guard Christian Jones - 6’5, 185 pounds. From East St. Louis, IL. Averaging 11.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game this season as a sophomore. Shooting 37.8% from deep on 82 attempts. Two seasons of eligibility remaining. - committed to Kansas State

San Diego guard Deuce Turner - 6'2, 181 pounds. From Coatesville, PA. Averaged 15.5 points, 2.4 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 2023-24, winning WCC 6th man of the Year. Shot 37.4% from deep last season. - committed to UCSB

North Texas guard Aaron Scott - 6'7, 190 pounds. From Spring, TX. Averaged 11 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 2023-24. Career 70/191 from deep (36.6%). Played for Grant McCasland at UNT for two seasons. - committed to St. John's

Drexel forward Amari Williams - 6'10, 227 pounds. From Nottingham, UK. Averaged 12.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.8 blocks this past season. First Team All-CAA and 2x CAA Defensive Player of the Year. One season of eligibility remaining. - committed to Kentucky

Oklahoma State forward Brandon Garrison - 6'11, 245 pounds. From Oklahoma City, OK. Former McDonald's All American. Averaged 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 blocks per game as a true freshman. Three seasons of eligibility remaining. - committed to Kentucky

Yikes.

Both on trick plays.

If Leach is watching this he’s either disgusted or laughing. Heck, maybe both.

I am done with “The Brand” …

We don’t have a coach, we have a nerd leading our offense. This is not winning football.

Warning, TL;DR post to follow. The short version: For those who are extremely and relentlessly down and/or angry about Tech football, the questions is: Based on history and current circumstances with both Tech football and what we can observe from college football as a whole, what is your mindset and how do you set and manage expectations? This board is so off the rails sometimes I can't wrap my head around how people seem to be genuinely and intensely angry when we lay an egg... for the 15th year in a row.


Just like every year for as long as I can remember it seems most of the board spends the offseason drinking heavy doses of kool aid and convincing themselves this is gonna be our year. Then, when we inevitably look like crap (whether it be week 1 or week 6) There's a flood of "Player X sucks, bench him!" and "coach X sucks, fire him!" and if we suck enough times, the inevitable "Fire Kirby." There was a time when I could understand this stuff because I was a student during the prime Leach years and that's all I ever really knew of Tech football, so my expectations were that we should always be 7-5 at a bare minimum with plenty of national attention, big wins, the occasional chance to be competing for the CCG in November, etc. However, none of that has been the case since at least 2012 or so if we're being generous and really since 2009. That's 15 years ago. Outside of a handful of blue blood programs, that's how football goes for literally every program in the country. You have some good years, you have smoe bad years and you have a lot of in between.

I know we hear about facilities, recruits, transfers, spring and fall practice standouts, NIL deals, donor support, etc and it's all good news and sunshine, but it also basically never means anything for the season at hand. At best that's an indication for whether you can feel safe hoping for the future, and even that requires several years in a row of everything pointing up if we're expecting to crawl out of the hole we lived in. None of which has happened since 2009. Yet we have people wanting players benched and coaches fired after one single game. People calling the season a dissappointment after one single game.

And to the one single game point, you can go back through every season of college football and find at least one 9+ win team who laid an early season egg, if not 2-3 throughout the year... but they still somehow got to 9+ wins, which I think everyone here would be throwing a party over if we could manage that. Yet the perspective seems to be lost on a lot of folks. I get it in game threads or even for the few hours afterward, but there's stuff even on Wednesdays and Thursdays that's so nonsensical and emotionally driven that I can't quite wrap my head around it.

So for those of you who are extremely down or upset, what gives? Is it irrational fanaticism? Do you just expect we will suddenly be Bama/Georgia out of nowhere? Is it simply cathartic to spew BS on a message board where there are no real consequences? Do you enjoy trolling? Do you have a similar attitude/approach toward life in general? I'm legitimately curious because I can't figure out how someone could watch Tech football for the past 15 years (or more), know anything about 90% of the other teams in college football, and still set expectations so high and put so much emotional well being on the line for something like this.

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We are in the building. Three hours to kick. Red Raiders v. Wildcats. First game thread of the season. Let's go.





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Tech is a G5 program. We should be thankful the Big 12 allowed us to stay.

National Player of the Week Honors last week and an impressive stat line in ACU’s victory.


We chose the wrong QB.

What is wrong with this coaching staff?
They can’t recruit and they can’t develop and they can’t evaluate.

Burn down the barn and rebuild. The rats have infested it beyond fixing.

I'm sure a lot of people have noticed that I've been spamming the board with polls to rank the players on the football team for the 2024 season. We finally have the fruit of that labor, an infallible top 10 list of players voted on by the geniuses of RRS!

The official list:

Tier 1
1) Tahj Brooks - RB - Super Senior

Tier 2
2) Josh Kelly - WR - Super Senior
3) Jacob Rodriguez - LB - RS Junior
4) Ben Roberts - LB - RS Soph
5) Behren Morton - QB - RS Junior
6) Bralyn Lux - CB - Super Senior
7) C.J. Baskerville - S - Senior
8) Jalin Conyers - TE - Super Senior
9) Vinny Sciury - OG - Super Senior
10) Micah Hudson - WR - True Freshman

Tiers were separated by a player getting a majority of the vote, the only majority vote was Tahj Brooks so he's in a tier by himself and everyone else is in tier 2. Below are some notes that I find interesting from the above list:

• There were only two run-offs, those two run-offs were won by Lux over Baskerville and Micah Hudson over Caleb Rogers. Both times, the 2nd place vote getter going into the run-off actually won the run-off vs the first place vote getter, which shows why we do run-offs in close races.
• We have 6 seniors on the list, 5 of which are super seniors. We were old last season but at the top of our roster we're old again.
• We have 6 Transfer players on the list, 3 of which are new to the program (Conyers, Sciury and Kelly) and 3 have been here multiple years (Rodriguez, Lux, Baskerville)
• Micah Hudson snuck in at #10 and it's probably the first time we've ever had a true freshman on the list. I'm not certain we've ever had a RS Fr on the list in the years I've been doing it
• We have 6 offensive players on the list, it looked like #11 would have probably been Caleb Rogers too so that would be 7 out of 11.

I'm really excited for this season. It feels like we're on the cusp of something big like it did 20 years ago. Something else that's strangely exciting to me is that as a result of being so terrible against Tarleton State last season, we can actually glean something from our first game. If we are explosive on offense and can throw the ball efficiently, even against ACU, that's an improvement from last year. Let me know what you guys think of the list, who is too low, who is too high (everyone on a top 10 list is an asset to winning so keep it civil please.) I'm going to post previous years lists below as well so we can make fun of them.

It's that time of the year again for my annual do we replace Kittley poll after yet another game he proved he's a dunce when it matters. What say you?

When is first game? I’m ready.

Is off to be a better start than “60 Minutes of Us.”

Apparently I’m not regulating my emotions very well at this shit show, and wife is not too happy

58 days to be exact to see a proven coach with a solid staff, with talented players in a Top 25 program.

No Brand though, don’t have a Brand.

He is in way over his head. He is Matt Wells with high school championships.

Here for all the put in QB2 smoke. Turn ZKs helmet comms off and let the Red headed red raider sling dimes to our 5 star

Pure dog shit

They’re not any good. Might as well make some money thx Vegas.

@ALL HANDS can y’all make a can of flavored bleach for nights like tonight?

14-0 1st quarter Arkansas. Ark has over 100 yds rushing in the 1st Q

And ksu down 7-3 to tulane. Not a good start today for the Big 12

Edit: ksu down 14-3 now

@NoGood1989 is happy

means the defense may eventually figure it out? Interesting.

Into the 🌞

There can’t be enough threads

Three years of this ? This is Wells bad.

Ugh.

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