Jamie Dixon met with members of the media prior to TCU Basketball’s first practice of the season Friday, and as you can imagine, there were plenty of questions about what’s going on in the NCAA outside of TCU. Dixon was candid in his responses, calling the involvement of the FBI ‘shocking’ to the basketball coaching community.
“I think everybody was just caught of guard. I think the first thing being that there is some many rumors in our business and everybody talks about everything, that you think you would have heard of something like this coming. But nobody seemed to know anything, so I think that shock was the first thing.”
But, despite coming as a surprise, Dixon feels that it was something that had to be done - an opportunity to clean up the corruption that has plagued the sport for decades.
“I think we’ll see improvements. I think it’s a good day, to be honest. I think some things will get cleaned up and talked about.”
Dixon spoke for several minutes on the topic, mentioning his involvement with several NCAA committees as well as serving on the board of directors of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
It’s obvious that Dixon knows what’s happening on his staff - because he makes a point to. There won’t be any Rick Pitino denials coming out of Fort Worth. Dixon mentioned that he meets with his staff daily when he is in town, and one of the top two things on the docket is always compliance. He takes pride in doing things the right way, and ensures that his staff follows those same guidelines. So, when he was told by administration at TCU to talk to his people, he felt, as he put it, “quite comfortable”.
“We were informed to do that (talk to assistants and try and get ahead of any issues) by our administration. But I felt quite comfortable. We continue to lecture our guys about never going down that road, because there are challenges out there every day. Every day we face some kind of decision that we have to make a choice.”
Basketball recruiting can be a dirty game, as Jamie alluded to last week when news of the FBI investigation broke. But, by all appearances, it seems Jamie Dixon and his staff are keeping their hands clean ahead of the biggest season in the last two decades of TCU Basketball history.