How TCU basketball overhauled its roster to reach March Madness
The days of building a college basketball program with recruits who develop over a four-year career are gone. Recruiting battles have shifted from targeting McDonald’s All-Americans coming out of high school to the top players in the NCAA’s transfer portal.
Just ask TCU basketball coach Jamie Dixon, who made a name for himself as a coach who could evaluate and develop players over his 13 years at Pittsburgh. Now Dixon has fully embraced the transfer portal era as he used it last offseason to overhaul his roster.
“It’s a different world. I had one transfer at Pittsburgh in my years there,” Dixon said. “Kansas won the Big 12 this year and it’s not exactly playing with a lot of true freshman. It’s very challenging for a high school kid to play in the best conference in the country.
“It’s a different type of recruiting. It’s a different evaluation. But I’ve embraced it.”
Dixon didn’t have much of an option after enduring the first losing season of his coaching career a year ago. The Horned Frogs went 12-14. There were excuses such as COVID-related shutdowns and injuries.
At the end of the day, though, it came down to the roster makeup. The pieces simply didn’t jell together as hoped, despite featuring plenty of talent on paper.
So Dixon and his staff went back to the drawing board, completely overhauling the roster by hitting the portal harder than ever before. Dixon brought in eight transfers in the span of a month last offseason.
What’s resulted is a team that has come together and returned the Frogs to the NCAA Tournament for just the second time this century. TCU (20-12) earned the 9-seed in the South Region as it’ll face 8-seed Seton Hall of the Big East in the first round at 8:57 p.m. Friday at Viejas Arena in San Diego.
“It wasn’t what I envisioned when I came here,” Dixon said, “but it’s something we had to adjust to.”
TCU kept only four scholarship players from the 2020-21 team, bringing back Mike Miles, Eddie Lampkin, Francisco Farabello and Chuck O’Bannon Jr. Dixon and his staff would’ve liked to retain a couple of the players who transferred or moved on, but overhauling the roster was a necessity.
And TCU became a destination for players in the portal looking to return to their hometown, or home state.
Micah Peavy, who played at Duncanville, Xavier Cork, who played at Sulphur Springs, and JaKobe Coles, who played at Denton Guyer, were three players who came to TCU in part to get closer to home.
And then TCU brought in players such as Damion Baugh from Memphis and Emanuel Miller from Texas A&M who were sold on building something special at a school without much basketball tradition.
“Coming back home and being able to win in your hometown, making this program a winning program, was a big reason for me,” Peavy said. “I knew the coaching staff here. I just loved the things they said about what they saw and what we could do and we lived up to it. The coaches did a great job in building the roster.”
Peavy had plenty of interest from other schools, including returning to Tech or following coach Chris Beard to Texas.
Cork was another big recruiting battle TCU won. Cork played at Western Carolina as a true freshman and flashed enough potential that schools including Florida, Colorado State, UCF and Texas A&M were recruiting him.
“They were trying to build something here,” said Cork, who has developed into a rotational piece off the bench and is averaging 3.3 points and 2.7 rebounds in 13.4 minutes per game.
“This school isn’t known for basketball. They were trying to make a difference and change the culture. I noticed that immediately. That’s what brought me to it.”
Baugh and Miller were other coveted players in the portal. Baugh could’ve stayed in the American Athletic Conference with schools such as Wichita State showing interest. Miller might’ve been the biggest recruiting “win” of all.
Miller said he heard from just about every Big 12 school, from Kansas to West Virginia to Texas, hoping to land him. Ultimately, he liked what TCU presented and also had a relationship with assistant Jamie McNeilly, who joined Dixon’s staff last offseason.
“[McNeilly’s hiring] wasn’t the deciding factor but it definitely helped,” Miller said. “I entered the portal late and I took my time during my decision. I saw what TCU was doing. I saw Damion Baugh and then I saw Micah Peavy and then all of these guys choose TCU. So I knew how athletic we would be right off the jump.”
As Miller alluded to, TCU strategically put together its roster and it had a snowball-type impact with Baugh signing on April 16 followed by Peavy on April 19 and then Cork next day. Miller joined the group on May 7, and Coles later in the summer.
“On paper, we looked great,” Miller said. “But during the summer, I knew we were going to be even better. You see all these athletic guys, guys who want to win. We have a sense of winning at this program. We want to accomplish great things in this program and I can see it with everyone on the roster.
“No matter how a team is built, it can look great on paper, but it’s the connections and relationships on the court. The trust within one another who can bring out the best in the team.”
For TCU, the hope is the best is yet to come. This is a program that hasn’t won a NCAA Tournament game in 35 years, but feels like it’s on the verge of taking another significant step forward.
This roster has injected new life into its fan base, too, connecting with the students and community. There were record crowds at Schollmaier Arena this season. Now the Frogs are looking to make even more history in the Big Dance.
“We don’t have a huge basketball tradition,” TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati said. “But you look at the student engagement, you look at the fan support, and it feels like we’re really building something here. It had been a long March Madness drought before Jamie got here and now we’ve got a couple tournaments in close proximity [2018 and 2022]. It just feels like there’s more coming.”
Meet the Frogs
TCU has used this primary 10-man rotation throughout the season
Starters
G Mike Miles: Miles is the team’s unquestioned leader, averaging 15 points and 3.9 assists per game. He earned second-team All-Big 12 honors. Miles was one of four returners and a player several transfers pointed to as someone they wanted to play with this offseason.
G Damion Baugh: A Memphis transfer who is averaging 10.7 points per game. Baugh and Miles are the primary ball handlers on the floor. Dixon gives his guards plenty of freedom to be aggressive and Baugh makes heady and savvy plays more times than not, although he is prone to a few turnovers during a game.
G Chuck O’Bannon Jr.: Another returner who is averaging 9.2 points per game. O’Bannon is known mostly for his offense and seems to be getting out of a recent shooting slump by scoring 15 points in TCU’s loss to Kansas in the Big 12 Tournament.
F Emanuel Miller: A Texas A&M transfer who was heavily courted by a number of schools. He’s an athletic wing who is averaging 10.3 points and a team-leading 6.3 rebounds per game.
C Eddie Lampkin: The team’s “energy” guy who dropped 70 pounds last offseason to become a force in the paint. Most project Lampkin as a future star in college basketball. He’s averaging 6.5 points and 6.0 rebounds per game.
Key reserves
G Micah Peavy: Texas Tech transfer who is an elite defender. Peavy also has flashed his offensive ability at times, averaging 6.3 points and 4.1 rebounds per game.
G Francisco Farabello: A returner who missed most of last season due to COVID precautions. Farabello, who is averaging 4.9 points per game, is one of the better shooters on the team even though his numbers are down this season.
F JaKobe Coles: A transfer from Butler who worked his way back from a knee injury in the offseason. Coles plays limited minutes but is a player with future potential.
F/C Xavier Cork: A transfer from Western Carolina who is an athletic 6-foot-9, 243-pound big man. Cork has put on 15 pounds during the season and has steadily improved.
C Souleymane Doumbia: Rated as the top big man prospect coming out of Navarro College, Doumbia has played limited minutes. But he’s in a developmental season and the staff likes his potential.
This story was originally published March 16, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
