TCU men’s basketball prepared to open season despite ‘very little’ 5-on-5 practice
Nobody knows what to expect from the TCU men’s basketball team this season. Not even coach Jamie Dixon.
Without getting into specifics, Dixon talked in general about the challenges the Horned Frogs have faced throughout the offseason amid the coronavirus pandemic. One of the more telling revelations came when Dixon said the team hadn’t been able to do much, if any, 5-on-5 work in practices.
“More often than not, we haven’t practiced. We haven’t had enough to practice,” Dixon said. “That’s the situation we’ve been in. We’ve done as much as we could with individual work, trying to simulate game situations. That’s what we’ve tried to do.
“As far as 5-on-5, we’ve had very little opportunity in that regard.”
With that being said, it’s anybody’s guess as to how TCU will look in its opener against Houston Baptist on Wednesday night. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. at Schollmaier Arena. A source said on Tuesday night that TCU and Houston Baptist are both cleared to play the game. The TCU women and Incarnate Word are also good to go for their game beforehand at 1 p.m.
Outside of the limited practice work, TCU has more questions starting with trying to replace its best player from last season, first-round NBA Draft pick Desmond Bane.
“It’s not going to be one guy, but a variety of guys,” Dixon said. “We’ll be different. We need guys that get more offensive rebounds, more drives to the basket, more put-backs. Those kinds of things at that position. We’ll need to have a lot of energy defensively to do that.”
This is also a program that has plenty of youth. The only senior on the team is walk-on Owen Aschieris, who has played in 20 games. USC transfer Chuck O’Bannon Jr. is listed as a senior on the team website, but has multiple years of eligibility left.
Juniors R.J. Nembhard and Kevin Samuel are the leading returning scorers and should provide experience and leadership. Dixon also said sophomore Francisco Farabello has looked good in camp.
“Francisco is giving us really steady play,” Dixon said. “I think he’s stronger. Generally speaking our players have really put an emphasis on their condition, their bodies, our training, our weight training and I think we had a lot of growth in that area.”
Along with Farabello, Dixon pointed to freshmen Mike Miles, Eddie Lampkin and Terren Frank as guys who have improved since arriving on campus.
Again, though, it’s unknown how it all will translate on the court given the challenges in simply running a practice this offseason. Dixon spent the first 10 minutes of his news conference Tuesday answering questions about playing amid the pandemic, rather than on the actual team.
For his part, Dixon acknowledged there will be challenges and disruptions throughout the season but is ready to go forward with it.
“We’re trying to proceed,” Dixon said. “There’s so many different elements and as we know it changes every day. At this point, nonconference is going to continue on. We all know there’s going to be some challenges, I think we’re going to have some strange results in some games possibly.
“As I’ve told our guys, we have to prepare that we’re playing and go in with that mindset and also know we’re going to have to pivot and readjust. That’s going to be the entire season going forward. To some degree, that’s what you do anyways but this takes it to another level.”
This story was originally published November 24, 2020 at 3:00 PM.
