Historically speaking, TCU Basketball is not considered a power in college basketball. The Horned Frogs joined the Big 12 nearly a decade ago because of their prowess in football and other sports. Head coach Jamie Dixon was the star player when TCU made the NCAA Tournament in 1987, and the team has only returned twice since then.
One of those appearances came back in 2018 in Dixon’s second year on the job. Any coach that can win 21 or more games in his first three seasons with the Horned Frogs is doing something right.
But success can be fleeting, and last season certainly couldn’t be considered a success. The Big 12 produced seven NCAA Tournament teams in 2021, while both Iowa State and Kansas State had abysmal seasons, leaving TCU all alone in the disappointing middle. The Horned Frogs finished 12-14, but just 5-11 in conference play. Things started solidly, with a 9-2 mark to start the year, but once Big 12 play got going, the wins became much harder to come by for the Horned Frogs, even if they did sweep Oklahoma State.
Looking ahead, things will be very different for Dixon and the Horned Frogs this upcoming season. The program has undergone a major roster turnover, with transfers expected to play key roles up and down the roster. RJ Nembhard, last season’s leading scorer at TCU, is off to the NBA, one of nearly a dozen players gone from last year’s squad. After a disappointing season, it may not be the worst thing to have some new blood on the roster, but this season’s success will greatly depend on how all these new pieces work together.
Jamie Dixon is a fantastic coach, but he has his work cut out for him this season. If these Horned Frogs are going to make any kind of impact on the Big 12 next season, then some of these new faces are going to need to step up and make an impact from the get-go. You know that the Big 12 is going to be a tough conference, especially with the talent on programs like Kansas and Baylor, who just won the national championship. Nobody thinks of TCU as a potent basketball power, but that’s an attitude that Dixon’s been trying to change since returning to his alma mater in 2016.
Anything can happen in the world of college basketball and these unknowns make it hard to figure out this TCU team. We’ll certainly have a taste for how this team develops in the nonconference, though Big 12 play could again be a rough road. Let’s start running through some of these faces, both new and old, that you can expect to see contributing for TCU.