HONOLULU — TCU coach Jamie Dixon was ejected in the first half of Friday’s Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic semifinal against Nevada. His Horned Frogs got bounced from the championship bracket about an hour later.
The Wolf Pack of the Mountain West Conference were impressive from start to finish in pushing past the Big 12 team, 88-75, at the Stan Sheriff Center and reaching Sunday’s 4 p.m. title game. Nevada (11-1) will face either host Hawaii or Georgia Tech, pending the outcome of Friday’s 6 p.m. contest.
Dixon, a former University of Hawaii assistant, received his first tech with 5:37 left in the half for arguing a whistle and the second 1:33 later, when he pointed at the Sheriff’s overhead video screen in an apparent effort to show an official an incorrect call.
Dixon appeared more surprised than angry when he realized he’d been tossed. After TCU was formally eliminated from defending its 2018 DHC title with associate head coach Tony Benford in charge, Dixon, the 21st-year Division I head coach, said he could not recall ever getting run out of a game. However, there was at least one instance at Kansas State in January 2018.
He was just as disappointed afterward that TCU (9-2) allowed Nevada to shoot 52% from the field.
“I was surprised (at the toss), but I mean, he told me early, right away, he didn’t want to hear anything,” Dixon told Spectrum News outside the TCU locker room in a Sheriff Center tunnel. “So I gotta listen better. I gotta do a better job. (The refs are) in charge and it’s on me. I gotta do a better job getting this team together defensively. We’re just not there, not even close.”
Nevada, despite missing starting center K.J. Hymes with an illness for the second straight day, matched up well against TCU’s large and experienced lineup.
Pack guard Jarod Lucas scored 25 points on 13-for-13 free-throw shooting, one make shy of matching the tournament record for foul shots in a game without a miss. The four other members of Nevada’s starting lineup – Kenan Blackshear, Nick Davidson, Daniel Foster and Tre Coleman – also registered double-figure scoring.
Lucas’ bucket in the paint, plus the foul, with 3:53 left, gave the Wolf Pack an essentially insurmountable 81-66 lead.
“Anytime you have a chance to play and potentially win a championship, that’s the whole goal,” Nevada coach Steve Alford said. “Nothing is set. We’ve got another 40 minutes we’ve gotta play pretty good basketball in. But it’s good to be in a championship, and fun preparing over the next 48 hours for that championship game.”
He declined to go into a hypothetical rematch with Hawaii. The Pack beat the Rainbow Warriors 72-66 in a prelude to the tournament last Sunday and are looking for a 4-0 road trip. Were it to prevail Sunday, Nevada would become the second Mountain West team to raise the trophy in the 14 editions of the DHC (San Diego State in 2016).
TCU, which set a DHC scoring record Thursday with 111 points in a rout of Old Dominion, opened the game with an alley-oop jam by Ernest Udeh Jr. from Jameer Nelson Jr., but in the end could not replicate the torrid scoring besides 24 points from Emanuel Miller on 13-for-14 foul shooting. The Frogs will face the UH-GaTech loser at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
Dixon, like Alford, didn’t want to speculate on a possible game against UH, where he spent three total seasons as Riley Wallace’s assistant from 1992-94 and 1998-99.
“I haven’t even thought about that,” Dixon said. “Whoever we’re playing, we’ve got to be better. We’ve got to prepare better, get our message across better, defend better.”
Note: TCU won the Diamond Head Classic in 2018. An incorrect year was listed in a previous version of the story.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.