Fighting for the Name on the Front
Nov 24, 2022 | Men's Basketball, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
The trophy stands about 36 inches tall and 18 inches wide and it has a light-blue stem as if depicting clear waters. Three purple palm trees jut out from a centerpiece that reads "CAYMAN ISLANDS CLASSIC BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT." The base is black and emblazoned upon it in bold gold lettering reads: "CHAMPIONS." The trophy tightly rests against the left side of Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang, who holds it in his left hand. Tang smiles and forms a Wildcats symbol with his right hand. He wears a black polo shirt with "Wildcats" written in purple script stitching. It's just after 10 p.m. Wednesday inside the John Gray Gymnasium in Grand Cayman. "Sandstorm" fills the air and a few hundred Kansas State fans chant, "K-S-U! K-S-U! K-S-U!" to the beat.
This is K-State men's basketball in 2022-23 and it is hard to beat. It's hard to beat watching Keyontae Johnson stroke a 3-pointer from the corner or power inside the paint. It's hard to beat Markquis Nowell zipping passes at breakneck speed or launching a long 3-pointer. It's hard to beat watching Desi Sills penetrate the lane. It's hard to beat watching Nae'Qwan Tomlin sweeping down the court for a monster dunk. These are just a few examples. We are less than one month into this season, and we don't want this to ever end.
It's hard to beat Tang's smile, the chest bumps from Nowell and David N'Guessan and Sills, and Johnson parading in a slow wavy dance with his hands running across his knees. It's hard to beat the players gathering together in a circle, chanting, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!" as true freshman Dorian Finister spins in the middle and waves his arms toward the ground. It's hard to beat the odds — so often the best-planned missions just don't materialize — but that's where K-State basketball, which some fans are calling the "Tang Gang," is different.
The Cayman Island Classic trophy is living proof.
"They fought," Tang says. "I mean, if you're a member of our K-State family, you should be so proud of what you saw. It was them. It was those guys. And they were fighting for the name on the front. And our ceiling is so high. That's the exciting part."
K-State has just stormed back from a 12-point deficit to beat LSU, 61-59, capturing the program's third-ever holiday tournament title — the Wildcats also won the 2018 Paradise Jam and the 2011 Diamond Head Classic. It's been a while since K-State has touched a trophy of any kind. However, it doesn't feel too long since Tang held the 2021 NCAA Division I National Championship Trophy upon a confetti-covered basketball court as Scott Drew's top assistant at Baylor. And here we are. And K-State is 6-0. And it's the perfect marriage. And on the eve of eating turkey, Tang gives thanks.
"I'm very grateful to Gene Taylor and President Linton and the K-State family for giving me the opportunity to serve and love these young men," he says.
Nowell leads K-State with 18 points, and Johnson and Sills each score 16. They combine to score 22 of the Wildcats' 28 second-half points, in which the team rallied from an 11-point deficit with 17 minutes, 27 seconds to play. The Wildcats allow LSU to score just 18 points over the final 20 minutes.
Johnson hits the game-winning shot with 4.7 seconds left. LSU charges back with what appears to be a last-second layup. Problem is that the game clock didn't start on time. The officials waive off the basket. K-State wins.
"Big-time players make big-time plays," Sills says.
There's an image, too, that along with the tournament trophy, accompanies the Wildcats back to Manhattan, and possibly beyond. Tang stands inside a room speaking to his team Wednesday night after the big win. Upon a dry-erase board someone has sketched a basketball in black ink, as if awaiting a painter's brush to dance across a canvas. And what might that canvas look like, in say, March, when the painter has had time to digest this K-State basketball team in its entirety, and what might the strokes upon the sketched basketball look like, and how might the basketball look to each and every gatherer?
That perspective will come in time.
For now, perhaps it's best to focus on the now, and so we catch the head coach speaking to his team about strength and courage and love and unity — "When things weren't going right, you guys stuck together, man," he says — and he continues — "and you showed how much you loved each other and cared about each other, and your toughness; tough people do what? The next right thing. We kept grinding and grinding."
Standing inside the room, in front of his team, Tang points above his head to nowhere in particular.
"Our season isn't about winning this, right? This is just one of the steps. So, guess what we have to do when we get back? We have to get one-percent better every day.
"I'm just going to tell you, that confetti was nice, but we have more confetti to come."
Tang talked about elevating the basketball program when he stepped on stage at his introductory news conference on March 24. Nowell and junior forward Ismael Massoud sat near the front of the room with their teammates. One by one over the next month, the teammates disappeared to various destinations, until there was just Nowell and Massoud, two New York natives determined to help Tang in the Little Apple.
Today, Nowell is Cayman Islands Classic MVP after putting together the best two performances of his college basketball career. One night after he has 12 assists – the most by a K-State player in a game since the great Steve Henson in 1989 – Nowell has 29 points and 11 assists, becoming just the second player in K-State history to reach 25 points and 10 assists in a game. Against LSU, he has a game-high 18 points to go along with four rebounds and four assists. Nowell calls the tournament "nothing short of excellent and amazing" and thanks his coaches and teammates.
"I was happy, but I was more happy with us holding the trophy up together with Coach Tang," he says. "This was a total team effort. Not one person won this thing for us. It was everybody on the coaching staff to every player on the court."
It seems like yesterday that Nowell along with Johnson and Nae'Qwan Tomlin represented K-State at the Big 12 Media Days and they fielded all sorts of questions about Tang and the K-State basketball program. K-State was picked to finish 10th in the Big 12.
Today, K-State unbeaten.
"It's a crazy journey," Nowell says. "We just kept the faith. We believed in the coaching staff and they believed in us, and to see us 6-0 holding up a trophy is special."
Sills, one of the other heroes of the Cayman Islands Classic, and who was a part of the 2020-21 Elite Eight team at Arkansas, has grand plans for this squad.
"Personally, the sky's the limit," he says. "I feel like we have every piece to be one of the top 25 teams in the country. This is only the beginning. We still have a long journey ahead. We're going to push this aside, but we're going to celebrate and then try to go to the next step starting next week.
"We're trying to make Manhattan something special like it's always been and keep going from there."
They took their game to international waters and are coming back a better team, a tighter team, and perhaps that's the scariest part of it all.
"We've got a toughness and resilience about us," Tang says. "We have spurt-ability, and we can turn things really quick, and that they really love each other and they really value our staff. I hear them say things that we say. We're all starting to speak a common language and that's pretty cool."
It's already become apparent that K-State players would run from Cayman Islands to Miami for Tang.
"I don't feel like there's any ceiling on our team." Nowell says. "We have so many new levels we can reach. And we will. If we continue to keep doing the next right thing, we'll continue to get better."
But back to the trophy. The trophy will reside in the Ice Family Practice Center. It will serve as a testament of the Wildcats' hard work and dedication and ability to face adverse situations and shine at the other side.
It will serve as a tangible start for what appears to be a very promising era of K-State hoops.
"It's really cool for our players to see their hard work pay off," Tang says. "It's cool for our fans. This is a group of guys you can really rally behind and cheer for because they fight so hard for the name on the front. I'm really just very, very thankful that God gave me this opportunity to be a part of such a wonderful university and program and to love them."
The Wildcats are headed home. They have big plans for Saturday.
"We are on our way home for the Sunflower Showdown," Tang says. "We are going to be rowdy in The Bill. Let's go get this W."
Tang likes to always say, "It's a great day to be a Wildcat!"
Indeed, it is.
The trophy stands about 36 inches tall and 18 inches wide and it has a light-blue stem as if depicting clear waters. Three purple palm trees jut out from a centerpiece that reads "CAYMAN ISLANDS CLASSIC BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT." The base is black and emblazoned upon it in bold gold lettering reads: "CHAMPIONS." The trophy tightly rests against the left side of Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang, who holds it in his left hand. Tang smiles and forms a Wildcats symbol with his right hand. He wears a black polo shirt with "Wildcats" written in purple script stitching. It's just after 10 p.m. Wednesday inside the John Gray Gymnasium in Grand Cayman. "Sandstorm" fills the air and a few hundred Kansas State fans chant, "K-S-U! K-S-U! K-S-U!" to the beat.
This is K-State men's basketball in 2022-23 and it is hard to beat. It's hard to beat watching Keyontae Johnson stroke a 3-pointer from the corner or power inside the paint. It's hard to beat Markquis Nowell zipping passes at breakneck speed or launching a long 3-pointer. It's hard to beat watching Desi Sills penetrate the lane. It's hard to beat watching Nae'Qwan Tomlin sweeping down the court for a monster dunk. These are just a few examples. We are less than one month into this season, and we don't want this to ever end.
It's hard to beat Tang's smile, the chest bumps from Nowell and David N'Guessan and Sills, and Johnson parading in a slow wavy dance with his hands running across his knees. It's hard to beat the players gathering together in a circle, chanting, "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!" as true freshman Dorian Finister spins in the middle and waves his arms toward the ground. It's hard to beat the odds — so often the best-planned missions just don't materialize — but that's where K-State basketball, which some fans are calling the "Tang Gang," is different.
The Cayman Island Classic trophy is living proof.
"They fought," Tang says. "I mean, if you're a member of our K-State family, you should be so proud of what you saw. It was them. It was those guys. And they were fighting for the name on the front. And our ceiling is so high. That's the exciting part."
K-State has just stormed back from a 12-point deficit to beat LSU, 61-59, capturing the program's third-ever holiday tournament title — the Wildcats also won the 2018 Paradise Jam and the 2011 Diamond Head Classic. It's been a while since K-State has touched a trophy of any kind. However, it doesn't feel too long since Tang held the 2021 NCAA Division I National Championship Trophy upon a confetti-covered basketball court as Scott Drew's top assistant at Baylor. And here we are. And K-State is 6-0. And it's the perfect marriage. And on the eve of eating turkey, Tang gives thanks.
"I'm very grateful to Gene Taylor and President Linton and the K-State family for giving me the opportunity to serve and love these young men," he says.
Nowell leads K-State with 18 points, and Johnson and Sills each score 16. They combine to score 22 of the Wildcats' 28 second-half points, in which the team rallied from an 11-point deficit with 17 minutes, 27 seconds to play. The Wildcats allow LSU to score just 18 points over the final 20 minutes.
Johnson hits the game-winning shot with 4.7 seconds left. LSU charges back with what appears to be a last-second layup. Problem is that the game clock didn't start on time. The officials waive off the basket. K-State wins.
"Big-time players make big-time plays," Sills says.
There's an image, too, that along with the tournament trophy, accompanies the Wildcats back to Manhattan, and possibly beyond. Tang stands inside a room speaking to his team Wednesday night after the big win. Upon a dry-erase board someone has sketched a basketball in black ink, as if awaiting a painter's brush to dance across a canvas. And what might that canvas look like, in say, March, when the painter has had time to digest this K-State basketball team in its entirety, and what might the strokes upon the sketched basketball look like, and how might the basketball look to each and every gatherer?
That perspective will come in time.
The next right thing#KStateMBB x EMAW pic.twitter.com/ESKBlfInLk
— K-State Men's Basketball (@KStateMBB) November 24, 2022
For now, perhaps it's best to focus on the now, and so we catch the head coach speaking to his team about strength and courage and love and unity — "When things weren't going right, you guys stuck together, man," he says — and he continues — "and you showed how much you loved each other and cared about each other, and your toughness; tough people do what? The next right thing. We kept grinding and grinding."
Standing inside the room, in front of his team, Tang points above his head to nowhere in particular.
"Our season isn't about winning this, right? This is just one of the steps. So, guess what we have to do when we get back? We have to get one-percent better every day.
"I'm just going to tell you, that confetti was nice, but we have more confetti to come."
Tang talked about elevating the basketball program when he stepped on stage at his introductory news conference on March 24. Nowell and junior forward Ismael Massoud sat near the front of the room with their teammates. One by one over the next month, the teammates disappeared to various destinations, until there was just Nowell and Massoud, two New York natives determined to help Tang in the Little Apple.
Today, Nowell is Cayman Islands Classic MVP after putting together the best two performances of his college basketball career. One night after he has 12 assists – the most by a K-State player in a game since the great Steve Henson in 1989 – Nowell has 29 points and 11 assists, becoming just the second player in K-State history to reach 25 points and 10 assists in a game. Against LSU, he has a game-high 18 points to go along with four rebounds and four assists. Nowell calls the tournament "nothing short of excellent and amazing" and thanks his coaches and teammates.
"I was happy, but I was more happy with us holding the trophy up together with Coach Tang," he says. "This was a total team effort. Not one person won this thing for us. It was everybody on the coaching staff to every player on the court."
It seems like yesterday that Nowell along with Johnson and Nae'Qwan Tomlin represented K-State at the Big 12 Media Days and they fielded all sorts of questions about Tang and the K-State basketball program. K-State was picked to finish 10th in the Big 12.
Today, K-State unbeaten.
"It's a crazy journey," Nowell says. "We just kept the faith. We believed in the coaching staff and they believed in us, and to see us 6-0 holding up a trophy is special."
Sills, one of the other heroes of the Cayman Islands Classic, and who was a part of the 2020-21 Elite Eight team at Arkansas, has grand plans for this squad.
"Personally, the sky's the limit," he says. "I feel like we have every piece to be one of the top 25 teams in the country. This is only the beginning. We still have a long journey ahead. We're going to push this aside, but we're going to celebrate and then try to go to the next step starting next week.
"We're trying to make Manhattan something special like it's always been and keep going from there."
They took their game to international waters and are coming back a better team, a tighter team, and perhaps that's the scariest part of it all.
"We've got a toughness and resilience about us," Tang says. "We have spurt-ability, and we can turn things really quick, and that they really love each other and they really value our staff. I hear them say things that we say. We're all starting to speak a common language and that's pretty cool."
It's already become apparent that K-State players would run from Cayman Islands to Miami for Tang.
"I don't feel like there's any ceiling on our team." Nowell says. "We have so many new levels we can reach. And we will. If we continue to keep doing the next right thing, we'll continue to get better."
But back to the trophy. The trophy will reside in the Ice Family Practice Center. It will serve as a testament of the Wildcats' hard work and dedication and ability to face adverse situations and shine at the other side.
It will serve as a tangible start for what appears to be a very promising era of K-State hoops.
"It's really cool for our players to see their hard work pay off," Tang says. "It's cool for our fans. This is a group of guys you can really rally behind and cheer for because they fight so hard for the name on the front. I'm really just very, very thankful that God gave me this opportunity to be a part of such a wonderful university and program and to love them."
The Wildcats are headed home. They have big plans for Saturday.
"We are on our way home for the Sunflower Showdown," Tang says. "We are going to be rowdy in The Bill. Let's go get this W."
Tang likes to always say, "It's a great day to be a Wildcat!"
Indeed, it is.
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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/ Men's Basketball
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