SAN DIEGO — After more than three decades, TCU’s NCAA tournament win drought is over.
The Horned Frogs’ 69-42 win against Seton Hall marked the program’s first tournament win since beating Marshall in 1987, when current coach Jamie Dixon was a senior guard.
“Man, it’s been 35 years — 35 years,” forward Emanuel Miller said. “That’s crazy. It’s crazy. It’s been a long time coming. I think this program is slowly shifting the culture of TCU basketball. I think we’re showing what TCU basketball is all about. I think one through 12 and the coaches are showing that we’re capable of competing with anyone in the country.”
Friday’s win was never in doubt. The ninth-seeded Frogs jumped out to a 28-15 lead and cruised, with Mike Miles leading the team with 21 points. It sets up a meeting with No. 1-seed Arizona on Sunday.
Following TCU’s single tournament win in 1987, and Dixon’s subsequent graduation, the program qualified for just one NCAA tournament until Dixon returned as the head coach in 2016. It reached the tournament in 2018, but the level of postseason success Dixon found during his 13 years as the head coach at Pittsburgh had remained elusive. The Panthers won at least one NCAA tournament game in nine seasons under Dixon.
Dixon has mostly tried to deflect talk of the Horned Frogs’ lengthy drought, and on Friday he deflected credit to his players.
“We’ve got good players and we’ve been to the tournament,” he said. “We won the NIT. So we’ve done some good things since we’ve been back. Hopefully this is the start of more to come.”
The only Power 5 team in the country that has gone longer without an NCAA tournament win is Nebraska, which is still searching for its first.