By Craig Meyer / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Before one can even finish saying the word, the one he hates even more than his team losing the rebounding battle, Jamie Dixon interjects. He knows where the question is going and rejects it.
“It’s no disrespect, but I balk at that word, ‘rejuvenated,’” Dixon says. “I shut it down in mid-sentence. I’ve been passionate from my first day of coaching at L.A. Valley College. I’ve never needed a rejuvenation or a change to exacerbate that.”
The idea of rejuvenation is one that is attached to any long-tenured coach who seeks an opportunity elsewhere, to the point of being trite. Changes in life, the thinking goes, create changes in personality and behavior, reinvigorating even the most complacent of souls.
The former Pitt coach isn’t rejuvenated because, as he sees it, he never needed to be. But the basketball program at his alma mater, perhaps the only place he identifies with more than Pitt, did need such a jolt. And when presented with the opportunity to resuscitate it, he answered.
After 17 seasons with the Panthers -- a time in which he grew from a young assistant to a grizzled veteran, becoming as synonymous with the program as anyone in its history -- Dixon is forging a new identity in his first season at TCU, attempting to awaken a long-dormant program. It’s an arduous task he has tackled capably and swiftly thus far, with the Horned Frogs likely headed to the National Invitation Tournament, their first since 2005, after spending much of the season as a viable threat to make the program’s first NCAA tournament since 1998.
The pull that lured him to Fort Worth and the promise of what something so apparently underwhelming could become is beginning to materialize, both on the court and away from it.
“I saw the future,” Dixon said. “You couldn’t really go by the past or even the present. You obviously now have some stability with the conference. You’re going to have resources and obviously facilities, meaning weight rooms, locker rooms, the arena and practice facility. All those things were upgrades for the university. You had to kind of go with blind faith on what it could become.”
Though it lost its final seven games, a TCU team picked to finish last in the Big 12’s preseason poll finished the regular season with six conference wins after going 8-64 in league play in its first four years as a member of the league. Last Thursday, it upset No. 1 Kansas in the second round of the Big 12 tournament, giving it its first win against a ranked opponent at a road or neutral venue since 1998 (it was previously 0-49 in that time). That progress has come with a distinct and undeniable Dixon imprint. As of last Thursday, the Horned Frogs’ offensive efficiency rating jumped from 228th nationally last season to 39th and they were 48th in offensive rebounding percentage, up from 185th in 2015-16.
With that improvement has come a certain level of attention, a precious commodity in a pro-centric, football-obsessed market. This season, TCU averaged 6,234 fans per game, a sharp uptick from the 5,319 it drew the previous season when it debuted an arena that underwent an $80 million renovation.
“There was energy in the building, better than I’ve seen in years,” said Jimmy Burch, who covers TCU for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “It’s no stretch to say there’s more buzz about TCU basketball than at any time since Billy Tubbs was the coach [in the 1990s].”
Dixon’s biggest battle, even more than what faced him on the court, was a fight against perception, the invisible force that had long painted TCU as a perennial loser and underachiever. The university, widely viewed as a football school, had displayed an increased commitment to basketball and made itself a more attractive destination, moving to the Big 12 in 2012 and completing a much-needed overhaul of 55-year-old Schollmaier Arena three years later.
Still, the program was missing one final piece, a loud proclamation that it was not only a legitimate entity, but a viable threat. By hiring Dixon -- a successful coach who, as a TCU player from 1984-87, was linked to a more glorious time in the Horned Frogs’ past -- it got just that.
“If we were going to do anything possible in men’s basketball, we needed to build a brand-new facility and go out and get the very best coach we can get,” TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte said. “We did both. We’re no longer talking about being committed; we’re flat-out committed. That’s changed the national perspective. That’s changed our recruiting. It’s changed everything about us.”
His success thus far has come not only from improving what he inherited, but fundamentally altering it. Recruiting -- a glaring weakness in his final years at Pitt, as evidenced by the Panthers’ 2016-17 roster -- has been surprisingly excellent with the arrival of assistant coaches like David Patrick, the godfather of Ben Simmons who recruited the eventual No. 1 overall NBA draft pick to LSU, and Ryan Miller, who helped TCU land freshman standout Jaylen Fisher, a four-star guard who was the highest-rated recruit in program history.
Those early victories have given credence to the notion of the Horned Frogs as an undervalued, overlooked property. As the only major-conference school in the talent-rich Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, there’s the hope that this early surge is sustainable, that TCU can outrun its not-so-decorated past. It was that draw and the emotional pull of returning to his alma mater, after all, that prompted Dixon to leave Pitt after years of spurning offers from suitors, including previous overtures from Del Conte.
“It’s not about trying to keep him; it’s about the next step,” former Pitt athletic director Scott Barnes said of Dixon’s decision to leave. “When a guy’s heart and head isn’t in it, you can’t resuscitate that.”
While Dixon’s eyes remain locked on what lies ahead, he’s cognizant of what he left behind. When the Horned Frogs went on the road to play West Virginia in January, he asked well in advance about the team’s travel plans, wondering if he would have to make a cut right on I-79 south instead of continuing on a familiar path west on I-376 into Pittsburgh (he didn’t, as they flew into nearby Clarksburg, W.Va.). He cherished his tenure at Pitt and harbors no regrets about his time in a region that, to him and his family, became home.
By leaving one home, though, he returned to another. The build at TCU will continue next season, when he is set to return five of his top six scorers. It’s a group that could show whether this season was a surprising aberration or an early sign of brighter days to come. As he attempts to answer that question, Dixon will be who he has always been -- determined and meticulous, a perfectionist almost to his own detriment.
Just don’t call him rejuvenated.
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG \
Before one can even finish saying the word, the one he hates even more than his team losing the rebounding battle, Jamie Dixon interjects. He knows where the question is going and rejects it.
“It’s no disrespect, but I balk at that word, ‘rejuvenated,’” Dixon says. “I shut it down in mid-sentence. I’ve been passionate from my first day of coaching at L.A. Valley College. I’ve never needed a rejuvenation or a change to exacerbate that.”
The idea of rejuvenation is one that is attached to any long-tenured coach who seeks an opportunity elsewhere, to the point of being trite. Changes in life, the thinking goes, create changes in personality and behavior, reinvigorating even the most complacent of souls.
The former Pitt coach isn’t rejuvenated because, as he sees it, he never needed to be. But the basketball program at his alma mater, perhaps the only place he identifies with more than Pitt, did need such a jolt. And when presented with the opportunity to resuscitate it, he answered.
After 17 seasons with the Panthers -- a time in which he grew from a young assistant to a grizzled veteran, becoming as synonymous with the program as anyone in its history -- Dixon is forging a new identity in his first season at TCU, attempting to awaken a long-dormant program. It’s an arduous task he has tackled capably and swiftly thus far, with the Horned Frogs likely headed to the National Invitation Tournament, their first since 2005, after spending much of the season as a viable threat to make the program’s first NCAA tournament since 1998.
The pull that lured him to Fort Worth and the promise of what something so apparently underwhelming could become is beginning to materialize, both on the court and away from it.
“I saw the future,” Dixon said. “You couldn’t really go by the past or even the present. You obviously now have some stability with the conference. You’re going to have resources and obviously facilities, meaning weight rooms, locker rooms, the arena and practice facility. All those things were upgrades for the university. You had to kind of go with blind faith on what it could become.”
Though it lost its final seven games, a TCU team picked to finish last in the Big 12’s preseason poll finished the regular season with six conference wins after going 8-64 in league play in its first four years as a member of the league. Last Thursday, it upset No. 1 Kansas in the second round of the Big 12 tournament, giving it its first win against a ranked opponent at a road or neutral venue since 1998 (it was previously 0-49 in that time). That progress has come with a distinct and undeniable Dixon imprint. As of last Thursday, the Horned Frogs’ offensive efficiency rating jumped from 228th nationally last season to 39th and they were 48th in offensive rebounding percentage, up from 185th in 2015-16.
With that improvement has come a certain level of attention, a precious commodity in a pro-centric, football-obsessed market. This season, TCU averaged 6,234 fans per game, a sharp uptick from the 5,319 it drew the previous season when it debuted an arena that underwent an $80 million renovation.
“There was energy in the building, better than I’ve seen in years,” said Jimmy Burch, who covers TCU for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “It’s no stretch to say there’s more buzz about TCU basketball than at any time since Billy Tubbs was the coach [in the 1990s].”
Dixon’s biggest battle, even more than what faced him on the court, was a fight against perception, the invisible force that had long painted TCU as a perennial loser and underachiever. The university, widely viewed as a football school, had displayed an increased commitment to basketball and made itself a more attractive destination, moving to the Big 12 in 2012 and completing a much-needed overhaul of 55-year-old Schollmaier Arena three years later.
Still, the program was missing one final piece, a loud proclamation that it was not only a legitimate entity, but a viable threat. By hiring Dixon -- a successful coach who, as a TCU player from 1984-87, was linked to a more glorious time in the Horned Frogs’ past -- it got just that.
“If we were going to do anything possible in men’s basketball, we needed to build a brand-new facility and go out and get the very best coach we can get,” TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte said. “We did both. We’re no longer talking about being committed; we’re flat-out committed. That’s changed the national perspective. That’s changed our recruiting. It’s changed everything about us.”
His success thus far has come not only from improving what he inherited, but fundamentally altering it. Recruiting -- a glaring weakness in his final years at Pitt, as evidenced by the Panthers’ 2016-17 roster -- has been surprisingly excellent with the arrival of assistant coaches like David Patrick, the godfather of Ben Simmons who recruited the eventual No. 1 overall NBA draft pick to LSU, and Ryan Miller, who helped TCU land freshman standout Jaylen Fisher, a four-star guard who was the highest-rated recruit in program history.
Those early victories have given credence to the notion of the Horned Frogs as an undervalued, overlooked property. As the only major-conference school in the talent-rich Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, there’s the hope that this early surge is sustainable, that TCU can outrun its not-so-decorated past. It was that draw and the emotional pull of returning to his alma mater, after all, that prompted Dixon to leave Pitt after years of spurning offers from suitors, including previous overtures from Del Conte.
“It’s not about trying to keep him; it’s about the next step,” former Pitt athletic director Scott Barnes said of Dixon’s decision to leave. “When a guy’s heart and head isn’t in it, you can’t resuscitate that.”
While Dixon’s eyes remain locked on what lies ahead, he’s cognizant of what he left behind. When the Horned Frogs went on the road to play West Virginia in January, he asked well in advance about the team’s travel plans, wondering if he would have to make a cut right on I-79 south instead of continuing on a familiar path west on I-376 into Pittsburgh (he didn’t, as they flew into nearby Clarksburg, W.Va.). He cherished his tenure at Pitt and harbors no regrets about his time in a region that, to him and his family, became home.
By leaving one home, though, he returned to another. The build at TCU will continue next season, when he is set to return five of his top six scorers. It’s a group that could show whether this season was a surprising aberration or an early sign of brighter days to come. As he attempts to answer that question, Dixon will be who he has always been -- determined and meticulous, a perfectionist almost to his own detriment.
Just don’t call him rejuvenated.
Craig Meyer: cmeyer@post-gazette.com and Twitter @CraigMeyerPG \
