Late on Selection Sunday, CBS Sports‘ Jon Rothstein broke news that TCU head coach Trent Johnson had been fired by the school, a report that was confirmed on Monday morning in a statement issued by the program’s director of intercollegiate athletics, Chris Del Conte. The statement, posted on the athletic department’s website, twice mentions the Horned Frogs’ new $72 million arena, and suggests that the school has the tools in place to establish a successful program in Fort Worth. The primary concern is that Johnson failed to deliver the necessary results. “We simply did not have the success we envisioned,” Del Conte said.

Trent Johnson finished just 50-79 in four seasons at TCU. (rantsports.com).

The peak of Johnson’s success in his four seasons at TCU came last year when the Horned Frogs entered Big 12 play undefeated and ranked in the AP Top 25 for this first time since 1999. However, TCU finished just 4-14 in the Big 12 to close out the regular season before making a quick exit in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Tournament. For Johnson, success against weak non-conference slates was the norm. The Horned Frogs went 39-11 in non-conference games under his direction, but their strength of schedule outside Big 12 play was never any better than 331st nationally, according to KenPom. Ultimately, though, Johnson’s inability to turn TCU into a respectable Big 12 program during his tenure appeared to mark the breaking point. The Horned Frogs won a mere eight league games over four seasons. “Your record is your record,” as Del Conte said.

The question now becomes what’s next. TCU has great new facilities that could prove attractive to recruits and the current roster includes some promising young talents like sophomores Malique Trent and Vladimir Brodziansky. Whoever takes the reins as the program’s next head coach will ultimately determine the direction of the program. Two potential targets with ties to the program are Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon and former Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Scott Brooks, but both seem like reaches for a team with such an undistinguished recent history. ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla suggested that Virginia Tech’s Buzz Williams is tailor-made for the gig, but Williams is in the midst of a promising rebuilding job already. Would he take on a more arduous task in Texas? The most interesting name sure to pop up in these discussions is Stephen F. Austin’s Brad Underwood. Underwood has taken the Lumberjacks to the NCAA Tournament the past three seasons while dominating the Southland Conference. He also checks two boxes that the TCU administration likes in that he currently coaches in the state and was previously both a player and coach in the Big 12. Underwood’s name has been mentioned previously in association with plenty of Power Five openings, however, but TCU could be the school to finally land him.

Chris Stone (136 Posts)

Chris Stone is a contributor to the Big 12 microsite. You can find him on Twitter @cstonehoops.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 14th, 2016 at 2:55 pm by Chris Stone and is filed under big 12, microsites. Tagged: brad underwood, tcu, trent johnson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.