TCU hopes Hawaii trip serves as another bonding experience

Road trips tend to do one of two things for teams.

“Either it sets you back or makes your closer,” Jamie Dixon said.

For TCU’s men’s basketball team, the first true road games of the season proved to be beneficial. They were bonding experiences.

The first true road game earlier this month was just a short trek across the Metroplex to SMU. But the team spent time together in a hotel after a shoot around session and then had a nice victory at Moody Coliseum. Less than 12 hours later, the Frogs were on a flight to Los Angeles for a showdown against USC at the Staples Center.

And TCU delivered its most impressive win of the season in LA, whipping USC by 35 points just two miles from its campus.

“It does some things for you,” Dixon said of road trips. “There was a certain excitement about going out there and playing and coming off the SMU win, and we’d been playing well.”

TCU hopes to have similar good vibes coming from its trip to Hawaii for three games in the Diamondhead Classic and another at Hawaii-Pacific on Dec. 28. Those are the final games for the Frogs before Big 12 play begins on Jan. 5 against Baylor.

TCU takes on Charlotte at 11:30 p.m. Saturday, and then will face either Bucknell or Rhode Island Sunday. The Frogs will have a game on Christmas Day, too, against a TBD opponent.

“We have a great group; the USC game we really rallied behind each other and we all cheer each other along,” senior point guard Alex Robinson said. “It’s a real tight nit team, so I don’t think we’ll have any issues when we play in Hawaii.

“I feel like we have to come together and treat every game like it’s a road game.”

Of course, Hawaii is not your typical road trip with the beaches and scenery. TCU will make sure to enjoy being in our country’s most beautiful state, but it’s also a business trip.

TCU (8-1) would like to improve its free throw percentage (66.9 percent), continue to limit turnovers and win the rebounding battles. But there’s no question TCU is going in the right direction as it heads to the paradise.

“We’re definitely headed in the right direction. You just kind of feel it,” junior guard Desmond Bane said. “We felt it a little bit in the USC game with how fun it was when everybody was clicking on all cylinders and we’re getting stops and the bench was into it.

“It’s just a whole different feel.”