Fresh off their third straight loss in Big 12 play, Jerome Tang and the Kansas State Wildcats have found themselves in a bad spot.
Despite having a roster featuring stars like PJ Haggerty, Abdi Bashir, Nate Johnson, and others, the Wildcats do not look like a team headed for March, unless it’s the NIT or sitting at home. The difficult part of this is that it feels less and less like isolated incidents and more and more like Tang’s inability to lead a Big 12 team, showing up.
As noted by Twitter user EMAWCaleb, since Jerome Tang’s emphatic win over Kansas, where he stood on a table and shouted, “We got you one court storming, from now on, expect to win,” the Wildcats are 54-47 overall and 23-30 in conference play.
It’s an incredible fall from grace for Tang, who led the Wildcats to the Elite Eight in his first season at the helm. Kansas State finished the year off with a pair of Third-Team All-Americans in Markquis Nowell and Keyontae Johnson, and finished the year at 26-10.
Looking to capitalize on that success in 2023-24, Tang brought in transfers like Tylor Perry and Arthur Kaluma, but a very public legal issue with star forward Nae’Qwan Tomlin took place that resulted in him being kicked off the team, where he transferred to Memphis. That version of Kansas State would miss the NCAA Tournament, starting a rough stretch of postseason woes for Tang.
Then there was the Coleman Hawkins-led team from one year ago that had some very notable issues. Dug McDaniel was all over the place, Achor Achor was kicked off the team, and the year finished out in a similar fashion, sitting at home.
This year, there’s still a ton of basketball left to be played, but the Wildcats are 9-7 overall and 0-3 in conference play. They did run into No. 9 BYU and No. 1 Arizona, but one of the games that looked winnable, on the road at Arizona State, they struggled heavily. The road ahead is not a fun one in Manhattan, and with the massive buyout valued at $18.6 million, change, for better or worse, doesn’t feel like it’s coming anytime soon.
