NCAA Basketball Recruiting: Analyzing five-star F Jonathan Kuminga’s top 5 teams

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Texas Tech offers much of the same thing that Auburn does from the aspect of being a program on the rise with a great coach and good crop of young talent. He’d also be the highest-rated recruit in program history and instantly become the face of the Texas Tech brand, much like in the way Patrick Mahomes is for the football program. However, there are a few things the Red Raiders can uniquely offer.

For starters, there’s Chris Beard. He has quickly earned a reputation as one of the sport’s best young coaches and is someone NBA teams have their eye on for jobs in the future. It’s clear he’s great and knows how to win.

Beard also has a proven track record of developing talent. He helped turn Zhaire Smith from a three-star recruit to a lottery pick in just one season, and he did the same thing for Jarrett Culver the following year. It remains to be seen what happens with Jahmi’us Ramsey, but he’s a top 50 prospect that might jump all the way into the lottery (if he doesn’t return to school). Beard landed the program’s first-ever five-star prospect Nimari Burnett in the 2020 class, and Burnett is hoping to become the next Texas Tech success story.

Speaking of Burnett, he was one of the main people trying to recruit Kuminga to reclassify to 2020 to play for the Red Raiders. The two are good friends and talk often. The other main person in that push was Kuminga’s brother Joel Ntambwe, who now plays for Texas Tech after transferring from UNLV.

All those factors give the Red Raiders a real chance to land the nation’s top prospect for the first time ever because no one else can offer Kuminga this combination of things.