{"id":400956,"date":"2026-08-08T06:18:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/400956\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T06:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T06:18:16","slug":"darrion-williams-announces-return-to-texas-tech-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/400956\/","title":{"rendered":"Darrion Williams announces return to Texas Tech basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; After weeks of speculation, Texas Tech men\u2019s basketball coach Grant McCasland has officially announced that fifth-year forward Darrion Williams will return to play for the Red Raiders in 2026-27.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Williams, who is known to the Tech fanbase as \u201cD5\u2033, had a successful run in his first two seasons in Lubbock from 2023-25 where he averaged 13.3 points per game and became a fan favorite before he transferred to North Carolina State last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">One of his most-iconic moments came in the 2025 Sweet Sixteen versus Arkansas, when his three-point shot made with 9.7 seconds left in regulation sent the game into overtime. From there, Tech went onto win 85-83 after they trailed for most of the contest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">His anticipated return was a topic of great discussion this summer, especially after he was spotted in Oklahoma City cheering on Red Raider softball during the 2026 Women\u2019s College World Series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">His path back to Lubbock was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2026\/08\/01\/class-22-athletes-granted-fifth-year-eligibility\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2026\/08\/01\/class-22-athletes-granted-fifth-year-eligibility\/\">largely cleared last week<\/a> when Judge Charlotte Sweeney of the U.S. District Court of Colorado ruled that college athletes who began play in 2022 are able to return for a fifth and final season.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; After weeks of speculation, Texas Tech men\u2019s basketball coach Grant McCasland has officially announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[315,29904,2692,49736,29183,140699,1775,27,29,28,1769,415],"class_list":["post-400956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-big-12","tag-big-12-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-darrion-williams","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaa-hoops","tag-red-raiders","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-tech","tag-texas-tech-red-raiders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}