TCU’s Dixon: Frogs learning to handle success amid NCAA talk

For the first time in almost two decades, a TCU men’s basketball team will head into the closing stretch of its season while hearing chatter about its potential to be an at-large participant in the NCAA Tournament.

First-year coach Jamie Dixon welcomes the attention. But he acknowledged Thursday that the recent three-game winning streak by the Horned Frogs (17-7, 6-5 in Big 12) that has triggered attention from college basketball analysts has required some internal attention within the Frogs’ locker room.

“We’ve talked about addressing success,” said Dixon, whose team has leaned primarily on its underdog status as a motivational tool while improving on last year’s 12-21 record that led to the ouster of former coach Trent Johnson. “It’s always changing. It’s not like you give a set speech or a set phrase for the entire year and you stick with it ... You have to adjust. Kids’ confidence levels go up and down. We’ve changed with how the moment is.”

Heading into Saturday’s game at No. 6 Baylor (21-3, 8-3), the outlook among the Frogs’ veteran players is borderline euphoric. Guard Brandon Parrish, a senior from Arlington Seguin, said he’s relished seeing the Frogs projected as high as a No. 8 seed in the March Madness field by USA Today. Other outlets project TCU, the No. 34 team in the latest RPI rankings, to make this year’s field as well.

“That brings so much joy to my heart, to be completely honest,” Parrish said before Thursday’s practice. “We’re in a position now that we’ve never been in. We have six wins a little bit past the midway mark of the (Big 12) season. My last three years combined, we had six conference wins. Total. This last ride has been simply amazing.”

It could improve with a victory Saturday in Waco (1 p.m., ESPNU). Regardless of the outcome, Parrish said he and fellow seniors plan to help Dixon keep the younger players grounded as the team closes in on the possibility of its first NCAA bid since 1998.

“More than anything, we just want to keep the team level-headed,” Parrish said. “We don’t want to get too up right now because we’ve seen the worst of the worst. We don’t want to get satisfied with what we’ve done so far when we know we have so much more that we can achieve.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2017 at 5:23 PM with the headline "TCU’s Dixon: Frogs learning to handle success amid NCAA talk."