TCU center Eddie Lampkin lost 70 pounds over the offseason. Now he’s making big gains.
Eddie Lampkin lost more than 70 pounds this offseason. The results are noticeable early this season for TCU basketball’s big man.
Lampkin has seen his playing time and production increase dramatically from his first year with the program when he played limited minutes in 10 games to being in a starting role.
“I feel like I’m more mobile now,” he said. “It’s easier to dunk.”
That much became evident in TCU’s last game when Lampkin had a signature dunk in the first half and went on to finish with eight points in the Horned Frogs’ 71-63 victory over Oral Roberts.
Lampkin played a season-high 28 minutes in making his fifth consecutive start. He’s expected to start once again Wednesday when TCU takes on Utah in the Simmons Bank Showdown at Dickies Arena. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.
Lampkin has become a feel-good story for the Frogs with his body transformation. The dunk against Oral Roberts was his first of the season with more expected in the coming months.
As coach Jamie Dixon joked after the Oral Roberts game, “It’s good to see him dunk it ‘cause he wasn’t dunking when he got here.”
Lampkin arrived on TCU’s campus as a 300-pound center out of Morton Ranch High School in Katy. His weight ballooned to more than 320 pounds, though, during the pandemic.
Dixon said Lampkin was required to quarantine for 28 consecutive days before the season began, which limited his ability to work out and stay in shape.
“It was hard,” Dixon said. “How do you tell a guy to work on it when he can’t work on it?”
That is part of the reason Lampkin had a forgettable true freshman season. He averaged 0.6 points and 3.2 minutes in 10 games, seeing the floor mostly in mop-up duty.
But, the day after TCU ended a disappointing 2020-21 season with a loss to Kansas State in the Big 12 tournament on March 11, Lampkin went to work.
He showed up at the gym for four or five hours, working with TCU’s strength and conditioning coach Andrew Mitchell. On days he wasn’t at TCU, Lampkin could be found working out with Mike Miles at The Star in Frisco. When he went home to Houston, he ran hills and continued working out three to four times a day.
Lampkin also changed his diet with the biggest difference not eating after 9:30 p.m.
“Not eating past 9:30 p.m. helped a lot,” he said. “And I just worked out a lot. I was here every day for four or five hours.”
All of it has paid off with Lampkin reinventing himself as a player.
“It’s been crazy to see how much his body has changed,” Miles said. “We both came in here overweight, but he lost a lot of weight. He looks good. He moves down the floor quicker.”
Dixon has said that Lampkin might as well be added to the list of roster turnover from last season with how much his body and game has changed in the offseason.
Lampkin is averaging 5.7 points per game in 16 minutes through seven games. His playing time and production have increased of late. He scored 12 points and pulled down 12 rebounds against Austin Peay on Nov. 29, and followed that with an eight-point, five-rebound performance against Oral Roberts on Thursday.
“The first few games I was getting my feet wet,” Lampkin said. “Now I feel like I’m back in rhythm. The last two games I’ve been playing well and we’ve been winning. I feel I’m doing something right.”
At the end of the day, winning is what drives Lampkin. He’s become known as the team’s biggest cheerleader when he’s on the bench.
Dixon loves when players such as Lampkin show emotion. After all, it’s easier to try and tone them down than rile them up.
“Eddie brings great energy,” Dixon said. “That’s what we’ve liked about him. Obviously he’s been a development. Even last year when he wasn’t playing much, he was always cheering for his teammates.
“He’s very unselfish. He’s a great teammate. That’s what we’re seeing him become more and more.”
This story was originally published December 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
