Looking ahead: Jamie Dixon can change everything at TCU

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It’s never too early to look at what’s to come. Over the next few weeks, we will give you a peek at what is ahead for teams in the Power 5 conferences and some other teams expected to be players on the national scene. First up: TCU.

If you can’t recruit, you cannot win.

Simple enough, right? Wrong. See, every coach understands this principle but not all coaches encounter the same obstacles as they attempt to lure talent to their respective campuses. This is significant within the hierarchy in college basketball.

The programs with rich legacies — Duke, Kentucky, Michigan State, North Carolina, Arizona, Kansas, etc. — attract the best preps in part because they’ve established fruitful foundations over time. The next tier includes programs such as Ohio State, Florida, Baylor, Syracuse and Wisconsin, which usually compete for NCAA tourney consideration and top-three finishes in league play because they possess the systems, leadership, resumes and talent to challenge the best teams in the country.

The third tier includes USC, Kansas State, Florida State and other teams that might show up one season and disappear a year later. Teams that might lose for years and then land an elite recruiting class that raises their stock and brightens their immediate outlooks. But it’s usually temporary. And it doesn’t happen often.

The TCU Horned Frogs can’t even claim a slot in that third group. This is a program that last reached the NCAA tournament in …

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