Only Eddie Lampkin Jr. can say for certain if his move from TCU to Colorado is a classic case of needing a change of scenery.
Nevertheless, once the new center of the CU men’s basketball team packs his bags for Boulder, Lampkin will do so with a number of heavy off-court matters weighing on his shoulders.
On Sunday, CU head coach Tad Boyle checked off his team’s biggest offseason personnel priority by landing a commitment from Lampkin, a 6-foot-11, 263-pound post player who appeared in 57 games for TCU over the past two seasons, with 51 starts.
Yet Lampkin left the Horned Frogs on the eve of the postseason amid controversy, and he has been dealing with an enormous personal tragedy over the past 11 months.
Lampkin started 19 games and appeared in 24 for a Horned Frogs team that spent much of this season ranked in the back half of the AP top 25, averaging 6.3 points and 5.9 rebounds. The Horned Frogs went 9-9 in the Big 12, arguably the toughest men’s basketball conference in the nation this season. But Lampkin left the program just before the Big 12 tournament while alleging mistreatment from TCU coach Jamie Dixon.
In a well-publicized series of events, Lampkin posted screenshots of texts between Dixon and Lampkin’s mother, Vanessa Lampkin, which accused . A report from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram during the Big 12 tournament indicated the parents of several other Black players for TCU had never heard of Dixon using racially inappropriate language.
Without Lampkin, TCU opened the Big 12 tournament with a win against Kansas State before dropping a six-point decision against Texas in the semifinals. The Horned Frogs defeated Arizona State to open the NCAA Tournament but lost in the second round against Gonzaga in Denver.
Yet the disappointment of how Lampkin’s 2022-23 season ended likely pales to the grief he has been carrying for nearly a year.
Last May, Lampkin’s brother, Du’Vonta Lampkin, was the victim of an apparent homicide in Dallas. Du’Vonta Lampkin formerly was a football player at Oklahoma, and in July three men were arrested on murder charges and are awaiting trial. Du’Vonta allegedly was .
On the court, Lampkin developed a heart-and-soul reputation at TCU as a player willing to dive for loose balls and do the dirty work inside. Center became an offseason priority for Boyle and his staff with the postseason defection of 7-foot-1 Lawson Lovering, who started 34 games this season before transferring to Utah.
Lovering averaged more minutes than Lampkin (22.9 to 21.8) but averaged fewer points (4.9) and rebounds (4.7). While Lampkin has struggled at the free throw line, shooting 51.4% in 2021-22 and 55.8% this season, those numbers still are an upgrade to the 42.1 free throw percentage recorded by Lovering this season. Like Lovering, Lampkin posted one double-double this year, recording 16 points and 12 rebounds in a win against Providence on Nov. 30.
Given the loss of Lovering, Nique Clifford and Quincy Allen to the transfer portal, Boyle and his staff still have one open scholarship to work with this spring.
“We’ve got things in the works for sure, but we’re going to be very picky. We’re going to be deliberate,” Boyle said. “We want to find a perimeter guy that can score the ball and shoot the ball. We lost a big wing in Nique Clifford. We lost a big wing in Quincy Allen. Our biggest downfall offensively this year was our ability to shoot the ball and put the ball in the basket. I would like to address that and get a guy who’s proven he can do that.
“We’ve got a couple guys on the radar. If they don’t work out, we’ll move to the next step. We’ll be slow and deliberate. But if the right guy comes, we’ll grab him.”
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