NCAA Basketball rewind: Most impactful coaching hires after 2016 season

3. Jamie Dixon (TCU)

TCU is certainly not a basketball school. In the past few decades alone, they had bounced around between several different conferences, with the moves typically favoring football and other sports. The Horned Frogs, playing a varying level of conference opponents, hadn’t actually finished above .500 in conference play since 2001 and were nearly two decades removed from an NCAA Tournament bid. In an attempt to resurrect the program, they turned towards a successful alumnus.

Jamie Dixon starred at TCU in the late 80’s, helping lead the Horned Frogs to an NCAA Tournament run before a brief professional playing career. He spent some of the beginning of his coaching career working closely with Ben Howland, including succeeding him as head coach at Pittsburgh. In thirteen years, Dixon led the Panthers to 11 NCAA Tournaments, including three trips to at least the Sweet Sixteen. TCU was getting a head coach with quite the pedigree.

Dixon’s impact at TCU was immediate, leading the Horned Frogs to the NIT title in his first season. His second year ended with TCU’s first NCAA Tournament in twenty years, while the program returned to the NIT with another deep run in 2019. The bottom line is that Dixon’s work has been extremely impressive when you consider just how good and deep the Big 12 conference has been.