A Key Member of Another Winning Culture

By: D. Scott Fritchen

Austin Carpenter slides into a brown restaurant booth in Hutchinson one day in late May with a story to tell. Although he was hired by Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang on April 8, 2022 as director of player development, Carpenter's role seemingly encompasses much more.

"I get to wear a lot of hats," he says. "I have operations duties in the office and specifically with equipment, gear, facilities, everything from how we're operating to trying and put us at the highest level. I've seen what the highest level of facility and standard can be. Because of that, I have a high standard.

"We're always working here on what we can do to make it the best opportunity to bring the best talent here."

Carpenter arrived at K-State after serving two seasons as a graduate assistant at Baylor, where he worked alongside Tang. During his time in Waco, Texas, Carpenter was a part of the greatest two-year stint in the school's history, as the Bears won their first national title in 2021 and captured back-to-back Big 12 Conference regular-season titles in 2021 and 2022.

Prior to his time at Baylor, Carpenter also worked in recruiting operations as an undergraduate at Oklahoma from 2018 to 2020.

Carpenter is used to being around winning cultures. He has been a part of four Big 12 Championships (two in football at Oklahoma and two in men's basketball at Baylor), two College Football Playoff appearances at Oklahoma and the 2021 Final Four berth and NCAA title in 2021.

Carpenter sat down with K-State Sports Extra's D. Scott Fritchen to discuss the ins and outs of his role with the Wildcats:

D. SCOTT FRITCHEN: How long have you been passionate about sports and how did that passion begin?

AUSTIN CARPENTER: Probably since a toddler. I grew up a sports junkie. My dad was at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and took me to every game I could, whether it was a minor league baseball game, a lot of Tulsa basketball, and the Harlem Globetrotters. I grew up watching anything and everything I could. I grew up in a small city. It's a city big enough where you don't know everybody, but there's definitely enough places to go where you'll know everybody there. I loved being four hours from Kansas City and four hours to Dallas. We had the opportunity to travel and watch a lot of sporting events and that piqued my interest. I watched everything, football and basketball more than anything. I played basketball. I never played football.

FRITCHEN: Describe your path to Kansas State.

CARPENTER: I knew when I got to college I wanted to work in college basketball and coach. That was my desire. I tried to get on as a student manager for the OU basketball program. My freshman year was right after Coach Lon Kruger got to the Final Four, so he had an influx of people wanting to get on. Coach Kruger had an open-door policy, so I got to go to practice and watch. It wasn't until my sophomore year that I got a job as a student recruiting assistant with OU football. I started as a volunteer and then ultimately got brought on part time. That opportunity brought me to the highest level of recruiting, which was blue-blood football. Even back then as a student volunteer, I was helping with every official visit and unofficial visit and recruiting coordination of who we were recruiting and why we were recruiting and being innovative in how we were doing that.

That got me into the door as a graduate assistant at Baylor where I began my basketball coaching journey, working in player development and working with our guys one-on-one and working with film study and scouting. My second year at Baylor, I was on Coach Tang's scout team, so spending time with him daily on how we were preparing for teams and working with him and film study and what he needed for both our team and also opponents was a great opportunity. That was where our relationship grew.

I did everything I could to make sure Coach Tang could focus on Baylor. The less he had to focus on the opponent the better we were going to be as a team because he was so good working with Coach Scott Drew leading that team. When Coach Tang got the job here at Kansas State, he asked me to come. I couldn't be more blessed to work with a man who exemplifies servant leadership. He really does exemplify what it means to serve everybody around you and I feel very thankful for the people I get to work alongside every day.

FRITCHEN: How would you define your duties within the K-State program?

CARPENTER: It's duties as assigned. I get to wear a lot of hats. I have operations duties in the office and specifically with equipment, gear, facilities, everything from how we're operating to trying and put us at the highest level. I've seen what the highest level of facility and standard can be. Because of that, I have a high standard. We're always working here on what we can do to make it the best opportunity to bring the best talent here.

Gene Taylor does an unbelievable job setting the standard for excellent facilities. When you walk into a Kansas State facility, it speaks louder than words. In our basketball facility, it's a part of that. We always try to upgrade that, both the brand and Ice Basketball Facility. During the season, I do a lot of analytics and recruiting and what we're doing from a self-evaluation standpoint – what do we do well and not do well and how can we adjust so that we can better operate as a team on the court. I work with scouting as much as possible. I love scouting opponents and understanding what they're trying to do and when they make adjustments and I use analytics within that.

FRITCHEN: How many hours a week do you spend on scouting and analytics?

CARPENTER: I don't know if it's quantifiable from an hours standpoint because you can be doing two things at once. I'll say this, during the season, we work as a staff as a whole to get the entire picture of the opponent. That takes everybody scouting every team. Our assistant coach who's in charge of a particular scout has support from the entire staff in watching games and making decisions. Everybody is pouring into both a paper scout, a video scout, and ultimately the scout that's being presented, so when we go into the level of competition we compete at, we're prepared at every angle possible. We watch games from six months ago to one year ago and what they presented and ran against us last year and what was the play that they ran after timeouts so we know, 'We should look for this play.' Everything is based on how we can best serve our guys and put them into a position to succeed.

FRITCHEN: You're credited with developing players as well. What all is involved in developing a player?

CARPENTER: It goes back to Coach Tang's servant leadership model: How can we serve the guys' needs? It's what are their personal needs outside of basketball, what are their academic needs and what are their basketball needs. If we can serve all three of those areas then we're doing a good job preparing our guys for what is next and life after basketball, which might be after two years or after 20 years. I do know this, we're going to do everything we can to make sure our guys are prepared for life both in basketball and outside of basketball.

On the court, it's studying their game — what are their areas in need of improvement and how can we best serve them in order to achieve that improvement? What drills can we give them? What film can we study and evaluate? In games, what are better situations we can put our guys in? For example, Keyontae Johnson, where was he more efficient on what parts of the floor and how can we get him more opportunities there so he can succeed? That really stems from the NBA level of basketball analysis and making sure that you're understanding your efficiencies and deficiencies and trying to fully take advantage of your efficiencies and how to work on your deficiencies in order to minimize them and make them so they are no longer deficiencies. From a non-basketball side, we want to make sure they have the best academic support possible. Away from basketball, our guys feel supported. Our guys feel like they have family support here that's bigger than basketball. We don't ever want our guys to feel like this is all about basketball. This is about life. Basketball is a tool for how we can love them. Coach Tang is an unbelievable leader, and he allows us all to fall under his umbrella that way.

FRITCHEN: What do you admire most about Coach Tang?

CARPENTER: His ability to serve without recognition. He's very humble. What people don't realize, too, is that he serves people behind the scenes. I got married a month ago and the last thing he asked me, "Is there anything I can do to help?" It is beyond basketball. He loves people, and he doesn't want the recognition for it. He just wants to love them. He believes loving people is important and that's his faith. For all of us to fall under a leader that serves us well and serves us that way, it's bigger than basketball, it's bigger than a job, it's about life.

FRITCHEN: We see the coaching staff and it looks like you have so much fun together. How would you describe your co-workers?

CARPENTER: When you look at our staff as a whole, we have a very collaborative effort of what it looks like to build a staff, and Coach Tang did that with intention. We have assistant coaches who've been in the industry for a long time with different backgrounds but are very methodical and free, and Coach Tang has given us an environment where we can be ourselves.

Jareem Dowling has an unbelievable personality that some places maybe not allow him to be who he is, but life is too short not to be yourself, and he gets to be himself on social media and in the gym every day. He gets to be himself talking with our guys and our staff and sharing his opinions.

Ulric Maligi does an unbelievable job understanding the temperature of the room. He really reads the room well and how we can best implore our guys and get the most out of them. He's been around for a long time with Texas and Texas Tech.

Rodney Perry has been at the low-major level, the high-major level and the AAU circuit and had extreme success there. He has great touch and feel for where people are coming from and what they do, and he's methodical in how he approaches work. He has a very strict plan of what he wants to do and how he's going to implement that.

Marco Borne is the Chief for a reason. He leads his own life very well in that he knows who he is and he knows what he wants, and he's very determined in making sure that we as a staff are always moving in the right direction. He's a great pulse for Coach Tang and in supporting the causes that Coach wants. He's always been a friend to coach before co-worker, so now that he gets to work with him it's really cool to watch a best friend work for his best friend.

Bailey Bachamp does an unbelievable job for us. She keeps us very coordinated on plan. She has a great feel for Kansas State and a better understanding than anybody could ever imagine. She's from Manhattan and she's a K-Stater and it's great to have someone on staff who understand this place at such a deep core level. It makes us so much more efficient as a staff.

Anthony Winchester is a very well-driven young coach. He looks like Bradley Cooper. He's really smart. He played overseas and has a great basketball background and understands the high level of basketball and how to implement that for our guys. He's going to continue to grow before he goes to bigger and better things as a head coach. It's going to happen sooner than people realize because of his basketball IQ.

FRITCHEN: When you hear "K-State" what comes to mind?

CARPENTER: Well, I grew up an Oklahoma fan, so I grew up losing to K-State every fall because Coach Snyder found a way to win. I always saw the blue-collar mentality in football and basketball. I remember Frank Martin's teams and his blue-collar mentality and a rabid fan base that was excited and passionate. When I started working in athletics and coming here as an opponent, I saw firsthand how special this place was from afar as an opponent. You realize the passion. It's a blue-collar fan base and a blue-collar school. It takes hard work to accomplish things. For me, I'm very proud every day when I put on the Powercat because I know that logo embodies what I want to be about — hard work and working when nobody else is watching and ultimately doing it in a way that honors higher values. For us, for me, it's my faith and the opportunity to work in a place where I can express that and be proud and love people accordingly.

FRITCHEN: How excited are you for the year ahead?

CARPENTER: I can't wait. This past season was hopefully just a glimpse into the future at what this program is going to be about under Coach Tang's leadership. We believe this is a place where we can win a national championship. Coach Tang has said numerous times, and he wouldn't be here if he didn't believe that. We all believe that as a staff. We were three games away from doing that. We know what it will take to get those three games. I have my national championship ring from Baylor and it always reminds me what it takes to get there.

You have to be really good and be together and connected. I'm excited about every step of the process in building that. That doesn't just happen the first week in April. It's what you're doing over the summer to develop your guys and how you are loving your guys. Coach Tang does an unbelievable job of building a family environment for our guys to feel like they can be themselves. Because of that, we're able to be more connected and have stronger relationships. When you get to that place of fire in March where your season is on the line, is your team going to be connected or split? We believe if we love our guys well and we give them every opportunity to succeed both on and off the court that in that place of fire our guys are going to have the opportunity to succeed more than most. We're going to do everything we can to bring guys here that fit that mold.

Kansas State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Keyontae Johnson

Related Videos