Texas Christian hasn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 1987 when coach Jamie Dixon was a player.
And the Horned Frogs only have one current player, Texas Tech transfer Micah Peavy, who has played in the Big Dance.
Seton Hall, by contrast, last won an NCAA Tournament game in 2018, when current super-senior Myles Cale was a freshman. The Pirates have several others players who have been on teams that won NCAA Tournament games, including Kadary Richmond with Syracuse last season and Ike Obiagu with Florida State in 2018.
Dixon is familiar with Seton Hall from his time coaching Pittsburgh in the Big East (2003-13) and is well aware Kevin Willard’s team is older and more experienced.
“We’re young,” Dixon, whose No.-9 seeded Horned Frogs will meet No. 8 Seton Hall Friday night in a South Region first-round game in San Diego (9:57 p.m. ET, truTV) said on Selection Sunday. “Certainly I know enough about Seton Hall to know they’re much older than us. I saw that and I recruited a lot of these guys back when I was in Pittsburgh so I do know they’re older.”
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He added: “We’re the youngest team in the [Big 12] Conference and we responded. It was their goal [to reach the NCAA Tournament] and we’ve reached that goal and now we’ve gotta go win some games.”
TCU sophomore guard Mike Miles, the team’s leading scorer at 15 points per game, hasn’t played in the Big Dance but isn’t lacking confidence and already seemed to be eyeing a second-round matchup with No. 1 seed Arizona on Sunday.
“Our ceiling is obviously we want to win a championship, but it starts with Seton Hall,” Miles told reporters Sunday. “We want to do something that’s never been done in this school, we gotta get past the first team and we’ll play Arizona after that. But we gotta get past Seton Hall, and we’ll see what happens after that.”
Despite their relative youth in the transfer portal era, TCU finished 20-12, going 8-10 in the loaded Big 12. They have wins over Kansas, a No. 1 seed in the tournament, as well as victories over top-25 teams Iowa State, Texas and LSU.
In their last game, March 11, TCU lost to eventual Big 12 Tournament champion Kansas, 75-62, in the semifinals.
“I think TCU can beat just about anybody if they play well,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “I love that team. I do. They’ve got great depth. Those players at 2, 3 and 4 are athletic. They can all do different things.
“Defensively they’re interchangeable. Then of course I’m a big fan of their two bigs. They’ve both given us problems, especially [Eddie] Lampkin, all three times we’ve played him. He has great hands, good feet. I think they’re a team that could really be a very tough out.”
Lampkin, a 6-11 freshman center, isn’t lacking confidence, either.
“We haven’t lost to every other conference, except we lost to Santa Clara [in November],” he said Sunday. “This is the best conference so I feel like we’re prepared for everybody.”
ESPN college basketball analyst Chris Spatola said TCU’s ability to rebound and play defense will help them, but pointed out the Horned Frogs are turnover-prone, which could make a deep run difficult.
“When you’re a high turnover team, you have to be able to manufacture possessions,” Spatola told the Star-Telegram. “And they’ve just got to get one or two of these other guys to make some shots along with Mike Miles. Emanuel [Miller] is good, Damion [Baugh] is good, one of those guys really needs to have a game for them to advance.”
Willard likes his team’s age -- their average age of 21.3 makes them the 10th-oldest team in Division I -- but not everyone on the roster has NCAA Tournament experience. North Brunswick native and American transfer Jamir Harris is 24 but has never played in the tournament. Neither have forwards Tray Jackson or Alexis Yetna. Jared Rhoden, Seton Hall’s best player, was just a freshman when the team last went in 2019.
“We have a lot of guys who have never gotten to the NCAA Tournament, so it was a nice mix,” Willard said of the team’s reaction to making the 68-team field. “You almost have that youthful cheering and then the old, old, old guys acting like they were freshmen. It was joy, it really was. This is a good group.
“We haven’t been together all that long so for them to come together in a short period of time and play as good as we’ve played all year, I actually thought it was pure joy from all of them. The old guys acted like freshmen and all the guys who haven’t been to the tournament acted liked freshmen.”
MIles, the TCU star, is anxious for the challenge.
“I’m sure they’re going to be ready,” he said, “but we’ll be ready, too.”
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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media.
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