Tang Still Blown Away by K-State Community

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Kansas State men's basketball head coach Jerome Tang threw out the first pitch at the K-State/Kansas baseball game in his trademark lavender quarter-zip polo Friday. Afterward, he headed to the Pinewood Derby for the Manhattan Boys & Girls Club. He's become an unmistakable face around the community. Assistant coaches joke that he can hardly walk on campus because he never turns down the opportunity to give others a moment of his time.

In less than two months, it appears Tang and his coaching staff have entered celebrated status in the Little Apple. Tang, in the midst of signing his first recruiting class, tweets "EMAW!!!" to inform fans good news is on the way — in the form of another basketball commitment. On a good night, he gets about five hours of sleep. Early morning, he begins texting recruits while preparing to land the next addition.

"I don't need (sleep) right now," he said. "My adrenaline is running."

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After Tang threw the first pitch prior to Friday's Sunflower Showdown, he hopped from the Big 12 Now on ESPN+ broadcast booth to the News Radio KMAN broadcast booth in the press box. He answered questions between pitches, saw a sellout crowd pour in through the Tointon Family Stadium gates, witnessed two K-State home runs, and said, "I always knew we had great fans, but they've exceeded any expectations I had, and they were pretty high coming in."

"I'm fired up to be here," he continued. "I'm looking forward to meeting everyone, shaking hands, hugging necks, and most importantly bringing a championship to Kansas State."

Forty-three days had passed since Tang delivered his signature word "elevate" at his introductory news conference. For more than 40 days and 40 nights he has collected his staff — first Jareem Dowling, then Marco Borne, Ulric Maligi, Austin Carpenter, Phil Baier, Anthony Winchester and Kevin Sutton — and has announced the signing of four players for his first squad while navigating the high seas of the transfer portal and NIL.

"Man, with the transfer portal and NIL, we're dealing with free agency right now," Tang told the TV crew of Brian Smoller and Mike Clark. "But we're going to embrace it, and we're going to be on the cutting edge of it, and not follow what everybody else does. We want to be leaders in the industry and not followers."

The parade of signees began with 6-foot-10, 216-pound LSU transfer Jerrell Colbert, a former top-150 recruit, on April 18. Two days later, Mississippi State transfer combo guard Camryn Carter, another former top-150 recruit, jumped on board. Last Monday, the Wildcats secured their first high school signee in New Orleans native Dorian Finister, a combo guard who scored more than 1,300 points and led G.W. Carver Collegiate Academy to the Louisiana Class 4A State Championship this past season. On Thursday, K-State signed New York native and NJCAA Honorable Mention All-American Nae'Qwan Tomlin, a 6-foot-8, 195-pound small forward who was rated as the No. 7 prospect on the 2022 JuCoRecruiting.com Top 100.

"We have a good base with the guys we've gotten commitments or signatures from," Tang said. "I'm very pleased with that," he told Matt Walters on KMAN. "But there's another level that we can get to and we're on the right guys and just have to finish the job."

Tang hopes to nail down a couple more signees this week. The plan is for every signed player to be on campus by June 4. Summer classes begin two days later. The later additions to the team could be on campus by July 6. That's when the real fireworks might begin. That's when Tang hopes to have "the whole team practicing."

"After the NBA Combine is done, there'd be some young men in there who decide they're going to come back to college that we're involved with," Tang said, "so that's going to be a big thing right after the Combine."

Is life currently a whirlwind?

"I'd say, (it's) amazing," Tang told KMAN. "Just the fans, the family, the people that I've met in Manhattan and around, it's just been incredible, the reception. A lot of love."

"The synergy between the town and the school is special," he said. "You just see it. The street signs, the purple trash cans, every restaurant or store you go into people are wearing K-State gear. I haven't seen many shirts that don't have K-State on it, and that's blown us away, just the support that the city has for the university and the synergy that exists here."

Does the traveling and recruiting become a little chaotic?

"You know what? That's the nature of this job," Tang replied. "There's always something else to be done. I have an innate drive to be great but the passion that our fans have for this university and our basketball program has given me a greater responsibility to do a better job because our fans deserve a championship."

Six months and counting before the Tang Gang officially embarks upon its first season at Bramlage Coliseum and as many as eight or nine months remain before Tang experiences his first Sunflower Showdown on the hardwood.

The 2,344 fans in the stands for the Sunflower Showdown at Tointon will assuredly grow to 11,654 at the Octagon of Doom in what could be one of the livelier Sunflower Showdown atmospheres ever to hit Manhattan.

"I realize it's a big deal, I knew it before I got here," Tang said. "I've said it all along: I didn't come here to beat Kansas… I came here to win championships."

Kansas State University Athletics

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