Playing away from home against a top-25 team is never a simple assignment, even for an Illinois group sitting at No. 3 in the nation. Texas Tech, now No. 16 in the latest AP poll, is no soft landing spot either, especially after beating the Illini in Champaign last season.
On paper, the numbers make this look tight. KenPom has Texas Tech at No. 17 and Illinois at No. 4, which lines up pretty neatly with the rankings. But the matchup details tell a different story, and they point hard toward Illinois.
The biggest edge starts on the glass. Illinois owns an average rebounding margin of plus-36.5, the best mark in the country among teams that have played multiple games. Texas Tech sits all the way down at No. 154 with a plus-5.5 margin.
Both teams have only played two buy games, so those numbers are going to move once the schedule stiffens. Still, the current gap is the current gap, and it’s a massive one. Texas Tech is especially undersized without JT Toppin, who is recovering from a torn ACL and will not play in this matchup.
That matters because Toppin was the difference-maker in last year’s meeting in Champaign. He accounted for half of Texas Tech’s field goals, scoring 17 of the team’s 34 made baskets. Without him, the Red Raiders have to find offense somewhere else.
Darrion Williams is one possible answer. The two-time All-Big 12 selection is back in Lubbock after a year at NC State, but he has opened the season with just seven points in two games and is 2-for-10 from the field.
Donovan Atwell is another veteran Texas Tech could lean on. The fifth-year returner was one of the nation’s most efficient long-range shooters last season, hitting 3.8 threes per game at 45.8 percent. So far, though, he’s 3-for-16 from deep and has only 13 points through two games in 2026-27.
That kind of slump can turn around quickly, and both Williams and Atwell could easily snap back into form Tuesday. But this is also the toughest defense Texas Tech has seen so far, and it doesn’t look like the ideal spot for a clean reset.
Illinois has changed in a major way since last season, and the biggest shift is tempo. The Illini were dead last in the country in fastbreak points in 2025-26. Now they’re playing with pace in every sense.
Texas Tech wants to go slow. KenPom lists the Red Raiders at No. 315 in pace, while Illinois checks in at No.
- That’s a dangerous mismatch for a home team that prefers to grind things down.
Illinois has spent all summer working at this speed, and the players have talked about wearing teams down by the end of games. Texas Tech hasn’t had much exposure to that style, either in games or in its own practices.
And without a superstar guard like Christian Anderson, who would have fit that role for Texas Tech in 2025-26, the Red Raiders may not have the ballhandler needed to control the rhythm. If Illinois gets its way, Texas Tech won’t slow this one down. The Illini will force the pace, own the boards, and make this feel less like a coin flip than the rankings suggest.
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The football program is doing its part, too, with Thomas Castellanos earning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week honors after a strong outing and A.J. Holmes landing among the semifinalists for the Bednarik Award. Even the future is starting to take shape, with softball set to join the 2027 Shriners Childrens Clearwater Invitational. For a program that wants to be relevant across the board, it has been a good stretch to have on the calendar. [Read more 🡒]