From Inside Red Raider Sports
Jahmi’us Ramsey arrived at Texas Tech as the most heralded recruit in program history, and, as is so often the case with recruits of his stature, didn’t stick around very long. Ramsey confirmed what many people had been predicting once he began popping up on mock NBA drafts in December, and declared for the draft after one season in Lubbock.
Ramsey put up very solid numbers for a Tech basketball team that played at the edges of the Top 25 most of the season, finishing the COVID-91-shortened season 18-13. He averaged 15 points, four rebounds and two assists per game, while shooting 43 percent from 3-point range. He also tied Davide Moretti for the team lead in steals with 36.
Ramsey had Texas Tech fans hyperventilating well before the season proper ever began when he went off for 44 points and 12 rebounds in Tech’s 94-92 win over Serbian professional team Mega Bemax in an exhibition game in the Bahamas. Had Ramsey hit his free throws, he would have hit the half-century mark.ADVERTISING
From that point on, the expectations for Ramsey were even higher than they had been. Many observers, including yours truly, believed Ramsey would reprise that fantastic showing a couple of times against opponents on Tech’s “for-real” schedule. The reasoning was simple, and it seemed pretty ironclad: against Mega Bemax Ramsey was an unstoppable freight train to the rim, and he was an assassin from the perimeter. At that point in his career, the book on Ramsey was that he was an excellent driver, but a suspect shooter. So, the reasoning went, when Ramsey was feeling it from outside, he would be pretty much unstoppable.
Alas, Ramsey never had another single game anywhere near as spectacular as the one in the Bahamas. His highest point output was 27 points against Long Island, and his best rebounding mark was nine against Bethune-Cookman.
Because of the team’s slightly disappointing record, and the incredibly anticlimactic conclusion to the college basketball season, Ramsey’s legacy at Texas Tech will be less memorable than it could have been.
In virtually every respect, Ramsey had the best freshman campaign in program history. He put up terrific numbers for a good team in a great conference. Indeed, he was named the Big 12’s Freshman of the Year and was generally recognized as one of the very best freshmen in all of college basketball. But the knocks on Ramsey—fair or not—are that he was shaky on defense, was not a complete player, didn’t develop into a go-to scorer, and was unable to lead the Red Raiders to a special season, or, at least, regular season.
The criticisms are valid, so far as they go. However, it was never realistic to expect those sorts of outcomes from a true freshman, regardless of how talented he was. Ramsey was expected to achieve as a freshman, what precious few seniors ever do. The sad aspect of all this, is Texas Tech fans will never get to see him develop into the player they expected him to be. For, if Ramsey had stuck around two or three years, he would probably have developed into the greatest player in Texas Tech basketball history.
