Fire Jim Christian? Don’t Even Think About It
A small wave of rumors and speculation has begun to spread around the TCU basketball program. As a sellout crowd watched Head Coach Jim Christian and his Frogs fall to BYU on Saturday, many began to speculate that this may be Jim Christian’s last season as the Horned Frogs’ coach.
Fans have been clamoring for the hiring of a coach like Billy Gillispie or some other coach with a magic potion to turn TCU into an instant winner.
As Mac Engel of the Fort Worth Star Telegram noted that fans should give this notion of a new coach up.
Athletics director Chris del Conte spoke about Christian’s job security: “Basketball had three scholarship players when [Christian was hired]. It’s not like the team was stacked with players. You have to look at the hand he was dealt. This is not cut and dry. I know we all want instant results, but this is a building process. I know people are frustrated.”
“Every year you look at the product of where we’ve been and where we’re going. At the end of every year we will see what we can do to get better.”
As TCU fell 79-56 to BYU in front of a sellout crowd, fans got a glimpse of the atmosphere that Jim Christian hopes to build for TCU basketball night in and night out.
For those that have watched TCU play all season, they are aware of the improvements that Jim Christian’s team has made. They have seen a team lose 25 points per game because players were suspended or dismissed from the team.
Junior guard Ronnie Moss was suspended indefinitely by Christian. Transfer guard Sammy Yeager was dismissed from the team for generally being a real horses ass jerk, and transfer forward Andre Clark was recently dismissed from the team (Clark had not played a single game for TCU due to injury).
However, Christian’s team has never stopped fighting and competing. They are often plagued by inconsistency and the type of killer attitude that they often seem to find but it takes its own sweet time arriving.
The fact is that Jim Christian had perhaps the nation’s toughest job when he took office. In three years, he has failed to change the culture surrounding the TCU basketball program, but the rebuilding is done. The program has been stabilized, and now it is up to Jim Christian and Christian alone to go out and fine the players that he wants to play his game.
Amric Fields, Jarvis Ray, Garlon Green, and Nikola Cerina are good players to build the foundation with, but a whole different breed of players will need to come in to truly put TCU over the top.
Christian must find the players who are committed to TCU basketball and who see TCU basketball as their project. These players must take the responsibility to join the four listed above and makes TCU basketball what so many people know that it can be.
In so many games this year, TCU has cracked. Not a lot, just a little. In several games, they have been as talented as the other team (Air Force, Northern Iowa, Utah, Wyoming, Rider etc.) but they have cracked. Mentally they were not as ready to win these games that they must absolutely have.
If TCU had won 4 of those 5 games, they would be sitting at 14-14 on the season. It would still be a long shot, but they would have a chance to reach the goal that they set preseason: 17 wins.
In a game when 4 or 5 games makes a season, 4 or 5 games wrecked TCU’s season, but as I have written time and time again, TCU will learn, and they will have two choices: simply sink or swim.
The players trust in Christian and believe in him. So should the fans. He is TCU’s man, and he WILL win here. He has done it everywhere.
The marketing campaign for TCU basketball next year ought to be simple: In Jim We Trust!
So….Daniel Meyer Coliseum came alive on Saturday. For one night, everyone got to see where Jim Christian will eventually take this team.