The time is almost here. The TCU Horned Frogs men’s basketball team will tip off its 2025–26 season in less than three weeks. As the opening game draws closer, preseason polls and projections are starting
to take shape. Just days after the release of the Preseason AP Poll—which featured six Big 12 teams—the Big 12 Preseason Coaches Poll has now been unveiled.
The Big 12 Preseason Coaches Poll mirrors the AP Poll at the top, ranking Houston, BYU, Texas Tech, Arizona, Iowa State, and Kansas as the conference’s leading six teams. Because the AP Poll is limited to 25 spots, the remainder of the Big 12 goes unranked. The Coaches Poll, however, provides a fuller picture of how the nation’s toughest conference stacks up from top to bottom. Rounding out the rankings after sixth-ranked Kansas are Baylor, Cincinnati, Kansas State, TCU, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Utah, UCF, Colorado, and Arizona State.
The Horned Frogs come in at 10th among the Big 12’s 16 teams. While TCU sits in the lower half of the Coaches Poll, the ranking feels realistic for a young squad competing in what many consider the nation’s toughest conference. The Frogs return only four contributors from last season, all of whom were freshmen in 2024–25: David Punch, Micah Robinson, Jace Posey, and Malick Diallo. Head coach Jamie Dixon’s team will lean heavily on that now-sophomore core, supplemented by a promising transfer class that includes Brock Harding, Jayden Pierre, Liutauras Lelevicius, Tanner Toolson, and Vianney Salatchoum.
TCU saw four players transfer and three graduate from last season’s 16–16 squad. The 2024–25 campaign marked the Horned Frogs’ first season without an NCAA Tournament appearance since the COVID-19–shortened 2020–21 year. As a result, there’s plenty riding on Jamie Dixon and his retooled roster to return to the Big Dance.
While Big 12 coaches aren’t overly optimistic of TCU’s chances of returning to the NCAA Tournament—as reflected by their 10th-place ranking—college basketball insider Jon Rothstein is rather confident, labeling the young Horned Frogs as the Big 12’s sleeper team. Rothstein projected that TCU could finish as high as sixth in the Big 12, a result that would all but guarantee an NCAA Tournament berth. Still, the Horned Frogs have work to do as a middle-of-the-pack team in the conference, and they’ll be tested early with a challenging non-conference slate that features Michigan, Florida, Notre Dame, and North Texas.
