The hits keep coming for what began as the most anticipated TCU men’s basketball season in decades.
Starting center Eddie Lampkin Jr. left the team on the eve of TCU’s Big 12 championship opener for what was reported as personal reasons by Frogstoday.com. TCU (20-11) began Big 12 tournament play Wednesday evening as the No. 6 seed and facing No. 3 Kansas State (23-8) in Kansas City, Mo.
Since the news broke, Lampkin’s Instagram page posted apparent messages from coach Jamie Dixon to Lampkin’s mother, Vanessa, about her son’s desire to enter the transfer portal later this month.
“I am sorry that I was not able to get Eddie to reach the levels we had both hoped for,” said the message identified as coming from Dixon. “I know he will be a great player and I hope and believe he reaches the NBA. I understand that Eddie is entering the transfer portal. Wish him all the success.”
In a response that immediately drew attention, Vanessa Lampkin wrote that no one had discussed her son entering the transfer portal with Dixon and charged “racial remarks” by the coach.
“TCU is making it about the transfer portal and not about the real reason he is not there with the team he loves. If you all don’t tell the truth of how you have mistreated disrespected and said racial remarks towards him. We will. Please do (not) disrespect my son’s name because all we have been is patient with you,” she wrote. "Handle us with Christian values for once.”
Talking to the media in Kansas City after TCU’s Wednesday practice, Dixon said he hadn’t seen the Instagram posts and declined comment. He said learned Lampkin wasn’t traveling with the team on Tuesday.
“We wish him the best,” Dixon told reporters. “I love him. … We’ll always love him.”
The charge of unspecified racial remarks immediately drew attention. Texas Tech coach Mark Adams remains suspended as the school probes what it called “use of an inappropriate, unacceptable and racially insensitive comment.”
Eddie Lampkin Jr. had several emotional Instagram posts about the difficulty of playing this season. In an apparent message to a TCU basketball staff member, he vented about Dixon.
“The pain didn’t come out of nowhere,” Lampkin wrote. “Coach you know how Dixon treat us.”
Lampkin has dealt with the murder of his brother last summer in Dallas and the recent death of an aunt.
On the court, he has battled a lingering ankle injury. The 6-11 sophomore had averaged 6.3 points and 5.9 rebounds while averaging 21.8 minutes of playing time. He had started just 19 of 31 games because of injuries.
The departure of Lampkin — for now and maybe for good — and the surrounding controversy is the latest adversity to strike TCU this season.
The Horned Frogs entered this season with all kinds of optimism. All five starters returned from a team that nearly made last year’s Sweet Sixteen. Ranked as high as 11th in the AP Top 25 this season, the Horned Frogs have been plagued by suspensions and lulls and injuries, so, so many injuries.
“I thought fully healthy,” Kansas State coach Jerome Tang said, “they were the best team in the league … talent wise when you look at their roster and what they had returning.”
Even at full strength or maybe close to it, it’s been a struggle for TCU to regain its dominating form, the one expected of the Horned Frogs since everybody who was anybody decided to return this season.
With Miles back from an ankle injury suffered against Mississippi State, TCU closed the regular season with three wins in its last five, and losses to Kansas (no shame) and Oklahoma (no show).
Asked if his team was back to its early January peak, Dixon hedged Tuesday.
“I mean, you could say that at times,” Dixon said. “We didn’t play well last game. We had a couple real good games, obviously. But things happen. We’ve had them all year long, injuries.”
After his analysis, Dixon mentally consigned the previous 31 games to the dustbin of history.
“I don’t think it matters what we did last Saturday. I don’t think it matters what we did two weeks ago, or the middle of January,” Dixon said. “We’ve got to come and have our best basketball going forward here.
“I have high expectations, I believe our best basketball is going forward. So that’s my mentality. So wherever we were at that time. We had some great wins. But to me, our best basketball is coming up this week. That’s my belief.”
