Big 12 Basketball: 5 biggest storylines of 2020 offseason

Texas Tech may be losing two of its biggest stars, but they also landed one of the biggest names in the off-season… and they might not be done!

Texas Tech recently heard the announcement that Final Four star Davide Morretti will be leaving to play professionally in his home country of Italy. This was a big blow to the core and depth of Chris Beards squad but now with hindsight may have been the reasoning for landing one of the most highly esteemed grad-transfers of the off-season in Mac McClung who averaged over 15 points last season for Georgetown.

McClung will likely submit a waiver to the NCAA to be eligible to play immediately. The NCAA recently pushed back the decision to change the one-year sitting period for transfer students. So McClung is not certain to play in 2020-21, but he seems to have a better chance than most!
McClung seems to have gotten some great guidance with this process or just knew how to play his cards naturally.

In a quote to ESPN he carefully said, “It was a number of different events that made me feel I had no choice but to transfer from Georgetown, I really wanted to stay, but things throughout my career made me realize that I couldn’t.” By not saying anything about a team’s style of play in basketball relation or how to fit into another program better or expressing concern about playing more minutes somewhere else like most do. He left his reasoning vague but with a point of concern saying that he was given no choice but to transfer because of “different events” that left him “no choice.” Smart.

Now, who knows what the NCAA will rule as they’ve proved to be far from consistent with these waivers in the past.

Another very interesting headline for the Red Raiders is the chance and rumors that they are being strongly considered by the nation’s highest 2021-22 recruit, Jonathan Kuminga who now is said to be able to reclassify and play in this coming 2020-21 season. That would give Texas Tech and an incredible jump-start to have the #1 freshman a year earlier than expected and would put them in the conversation with Baylor and Kansas for the top spot in the league!

This is all also assuming that last year’s freshman star Jahmi’us Ramsey stays in the NBA Draft. If he were to head back to campus for another year and completely shock the basketball world there would be a REAL buzz in Lubbock.

Next though, a little bit of bad news for the Big 12…