Building a monster

When you think of TCU, most people immediately think of football.

The gridiron version of the Frogs are perennial conference, if not national, title contenders year in and year out after just four years in the Big 12.

How long until that can be said about the basketball program? It’s been a rough transition to say the least as TCU has gone 8-64 in Big 12 games so far.

But beware Big 12 fans, the Frogs are building a monster of a program in the Ed and Rae Schollmaier Arena. The first big step was getting the facilities. The beautiful renovation was complete early last season and now it’s about building a beautiful product to put in the arena.

TCU then landed its dream coach in alum Jamie Dixon. While he hasn’t won a game wearing purple since 1987, he got his first big win Wednesday.

He landed the best recruit in TCU history, by Rivals rankings, when Jaylen Fisher committed to the Frogs. He’s ranked no. 55 in the nation. For comparison, Karviar Shepherd was ranked no. 65.

How did he do it? By recruiting some of the nation’s top recruiters.

Dixon was a national coach of the year award winner by taking Pittsburgh to the NCAA tournament 11 times in 13 years, but he’s never had to recruit this part of the country before.

TCU went out and got him some top recruiters in former LSU assistant coach David Patrick and UNLV assistant coach Ryan Miller. Both have been praised for being top recruiters and Miller helped recruit Fisher to UNLV. But after Miller switched jobs, it felt like a matter of time before Fisher followed in his footsteps to Fort Worth.

It’s been a whirlwind last two months in TCU basketball with the firing of an old coach, hiring of an old friend and now the top recruit in program history, so far. But the best part is, it’s only been two months.

Dixon has already breathed more life into a program in two months than the previous coach did in four years. The coach is building a monster program.

We’d probably be overly optimistic to pick this basketball team to be a conference, or national, title contender in just one season, but you can see the future. And it’s bright.

I think it will be sooner, rather than later, before we start talking about the success of the Frogs on the hardwood with the same excitement as those on the gridiron.