Jamie Dixon Continues to Revamp Winning Culture at TCU
FORT WORTH, Texas — Jamie Dixon’s time at TCU can be summed up in one incredibly succinct fact.
Dixon is in his eighth year as head coach. As a program, the Horned Frogs have won 36 games over AP Top 25 teams.
Dixon has led the Horned Frogs (13-3, 2-1) to 21 of those wins. No. 21 was on Saturday when the Horned Frogs beat the No. 2 Houston Cougars, 68-67.
Saturday’s game was the end of a three-game stretch against ranked teams. Scratch that — it was the end of a three-game stretch against Top 10 teams. The Horned Frogs went 2-1, and were, potentially, one foul away from being 3-0.
This isn’t the first time the Horned Frogs have run that kind of gauntlet under Dixon, either.
TCU did it two seasons ago. They also went 2-1.
If this had happened eight years ago, the court storming that happened after the victory might have seemed appropriate. Saturday’s storming actually seemed out of place.
After all, to win in the Big 12 one must beat ranked teams. And TCU knows how to do that now.
“I’m used to playing in the best league in the country,” Dixon said when told about his record at TCU.
On Friday in a Bracketology article in The Athletic, the site refereed to the Big 12 as a “circular firing squad.” It seems apropos. There are only two undefeated teams now and Kansas isn’t one of them.
It was Kansas that handed the Horned Frogs their only loss to this point in Big 12 play, an 83-81 defeated in the Big 12 opener. TCU could have felt sorry for itself. Forward Ernest Udeh Jr. was called for a flagrant foul in the final minute that prompted even ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla to say that is was the wrong call.
Right after the game, Dixon brushed it off. He wasn’t sweeping it under the run. He knew what was coming. He knows the grind of the Big 12. There was no time to dwell or feel sorry for himself, or for his team to do the same.
So TCU came home, beat No. 9 Oklahoma on Wednesday, and then beat Houston on Saturday.
“That loss (to Kansas) made us better, and how we handled it,” Dixon said. “We didn’t make excuses. We didn’t fall into the trap of everyone telling us why we lost. We made a concerted effort to do what we needed to do and put it on ourselves.”
Dixon didn’t make excuses eight minutes into Saturday’s game either. His team made terrible offensive decisions against Houston’s defense and fell behind by double-digits. He called a timeout and yelled at them. That included Emanuel Miller, his talented forward and leader who hit the game-winning shot on Saturday.
He doesn’t like yelling he said afterward.
“We shouldn’t have to do that, but I guess that’s why you guys brought me back here to do,” Dixon said with a bit of a smile, referencing his time at TCU as a player.
Yelling aside, Dixon has done what the Horned Frogs hired him to do when they lured him away from Pitt. His alma mater had fallen off the map. TCU’s last NCAA appearance before Dixon returned was in 1998. The program’s last NCAA Tournament win had been in 1987, when Dixon was a senior point guard for the Horned Frogs.
Now, TCU has made back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances and won a tournament game each of the past two seasons.
In reality, Dixon is partially responsible for the Big 12’s “circular firing squad.” He’s built the Horned Frogs into not just winners, but the kind of team that can pull off wins like Saturday’s with regularity.
Dixon has now led TCU to 21 of them. The Horned Frogs used to be a free win.
Not anymore. It’s why players like Trevian Tennyson, a transfer, come to Fort Worth.
“This is what I signed up for,” he said. “It’s fun.”
For Dixon, it’s exactly what he signed up for, too.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
