For Jamie Dixon and TCU basketball, it’s ‘on to next year’
In its second season in the Big 12, the TCU men’s basketball team went 9-22 overall and 0-18 in conference play. That was the 2013-14 season, and it fell in the midst of an 11-year drought between 20-win seasons.
The arrival of Jamie Dixon and his staff in 2016 changed all that. The new coach elevated the program from its bottom-feeder status to winner immediately, posting a 24-15 campaign and an NIT championship in his first season in Fort Worth. Dixon followed that up with two more 20-win seasons and an NCAA Tournament berth in 2018.
But that climb has plateaued the past two seasons with the Frogs going .500 (16-16) in 2019-20, and Dixon’s first losing record (12-14) in 2020-21.
“Simply put, we’ve got to be better,” Dixon told the Star-Telegram in a phone interview this week. “I wish it’d been a steep incline the entire time from the day we got here, but that’s not how it works in college basketball.”
Instead, moving up in a conference such as the Big 12 isn’t the easiest thing to do. Kansas has been a dominant program under Bill Self. Baylor has risen to new heights under Scott Drew. West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is closing in on 900 career wins. Chris Beard has turned Texas Tech into a national championship contender. Lon Kruger and Shaka Smart have brought in elite-level talent to Oklahoma and Texas, respectively.
Heck, six of the league’s coaches — more than half — have reached a Final Four at least once in their careers.
“Obviously we knew it was a challenge and it’s what I thought it would be,” Dixon said. “I don’t know if people accepted the Big 12 as being the best league in the country when we got here, but I think it’s improved. Some teams have gotten better, we’ve gotten better no question, but it’s the best league in the country. That makes it challenging, but we knew that going in.”
TCU has said it expects to be among the teams playing in or being part of the March Madness conversation. The school has invested heavily in its basketball program.
Dixon is the second-highest paid coach in the conference and the 14th-highest paid in the country at $3.67 million annually, according to USA Today’s coaching salaries database released earlier this month. His contract runs through the 2023-24 season.
“Jamie has significantly raised our expectations since the moment he arrived,” said TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati. “Elevating the profile of the program is one of the biggest reasons we brought him to TCU and we have made progress in doing that. But we know where we want to be and what this program is capable of and we aren’t there yet.”
Last season could be chalked up to a lost season amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Frogs battled through COVID-related issues from the offseason to the end of the season, including seven stoppages and close to 100 missed player practices.
The team also played most of the season without sophomore guard Francisco Farabello, one of its top players who was sidelined due to COVID-related protocols. Center Kevin Samuel wasn’t 100% as he was battling through back and foot injuries for much of the season. And the list goes on.
All of it led to TCU never hitting its stride on the court. This is a team that had the worst turnover margin (-2.69) in the Big 12 and ranked 273rd out of 340 Division I teams in scoring only 66.8 points per game.
But Dixon isn’t spending a lot of time “rehashing what happened last year.” He’s focused on moving forward and getting the program back to being in the NCAA Tournament mix.
Dixon has never gone into an offseason with a losing record, but he’s not planning to make sweeping changes. He feels he’s got the staff in place to get the Horned Frogs headed in the right direction again.
“I’m very excited about my staff,” Dixon said. “We’re looking forward to next year.”
Added Donati: “We have really good coaches and we have plenty to build around. I have confidence they can make the appropriate adjustments to get us on track.”
For all that went wrong for TCU basketball last season, there are reasons for optimism.
Freshman guard Mike Miles looked like a future star at times. Other freshmen flashed during the season, too, such as Terren Frank and Taryn Todd. Junior guard RJ Nembhard ranked sixth among the Big 12 scoring leaders with 15.7 points a game.
TCU also has an athletic big man coming in with Navarro College’s Souleymane Doumbia, and will likely have other roster spots open up throughout the offseason given the number of players transferring in today’s game.
As Dixon said, “We’re already on to next year. We’re not spending a lot of time rehashing last year, but that’s how it always is. I don’t know if that changes much. We’ve got work to do obviously, but you’re always excited about next year.”
