The last major cycle of conference realignment brought TCU Basketball to the Big 12 and it was absolutely a football-oriented move. The Horned Frogs had struggled mightily in the Mountain West in the years before making that change, and TCU isn’t exactly a program with historical success. Before coach Jamie Dixon was hired six years ago, the Horned Frogs hadn’t even been in the NCAA Tournament for nearly two decades.
But Dixon has been a lifesaver for his alma mater. He was a successful coach across a long stint at Pittsburgh and has settled in nicely with the Horned Frogs. The Big 12 is a very strong conference, but TCU hasn’t been the punching bag many people expected a decade ago when they joined the league. Dixon led this program to the NCAA Tournament back in 2018, his second season, but has things working in a major way nowadays.
TCU has yet to finish a season above .500 in conference play in the Big 12, but this will definitely be Dixon’s best squad, as evident by how last season ended. The Horned Frogs returned to the NCAA Tournament and achieved their first win in the Big Dance in 35 years, since back when Dixon himself was on the roster. Not only did this TCU team win 21 games, but they blasted a solid Seton Hall squad in the first round before taking top-seeded Arizona to the limit in overtime.
After coming so close to the Sweet Sixteen, TCU finds itself in an unusual position. Nearly last year’s entire roster returns this season and the Horned Frogs will find themselves highly regarded by preseason prognosticators. The Horned Frogs have a couple of players with star power that especially emerged during the postseason, and we’ll take a closer look at them further on in the article. With expectations as high as they’ve been for this program since joining the Big 12, how will this squad respond?
We’ll be taking a deep dive into this TCU team, examining just what we can expect from the players and this squad. When you’re in a conference with powerhouses like Baylor and Kansas, you know that life will never be easy, but believe us that this Horned Frogs team is extremely talented. If they can play together like they did in the NCAA Tournament, perhaps the sky is the limit. Let’s take a closer look at some of those vital pieces.