A Grown Man with a Firm Handshake

By: D. Scott Fritchen

The formal introduction of PJ Haggerty came at 7:54 on a pleasant Wednesday morning in Kansas City, Missouri, as the 6-foot-4, 195-pound junior point guard opened the rear door to the T-Mobile Center and sauntered down a red carpet wearing a purple quarter-zip embedded with an old-school Willie spinning a basketball. He wore wireless headphones, a white backpack, a cellphone in his right hand, a pair of Nikes in the left, and he turned to say something to teammates Mobi Ikegwuruka and Abdi Bashir Jr. and they grinned. Together, the three Kansas State players paused in front of a black backdrop as videographers and photographers went to work — click-click, click-click, click-click.

As Haggerty walked off the red carpet at Big 12 Basketball Media Day, he paused as somebody approached him.

"PJ Haggerty," he said, extending his arm and squeezing the person's hand while looking him in the eyes.

This is how it starts, with a firm handshake, a look in the eyes, and a purple quarter-zip that never in a million years did he believe he would wear back in the days in Crosby, Texas, when he already ruled the playgrounds and gyms, and was armed with his first scholarship offer.

In the eighth grade.

But now, after the workouts, and after the practices, and after the shooting sessions, and after the dinners, he lays his head on a pillow in Manhattan, Kansas, already regarded as one of the best talents K-State has landed in decades.

Consider Haggerty was a Consensus Second Team All-American at Memphis last season and was the first Division I player since Ja Morant in 2018-19 to average 21.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals to go along with 6.5 free throws per game. Haggerty ranked third nationally in both scoring (21.7 points) and total points (759). He also ranked second in the nation with 224 made free throws and with 274 free throw attempts. He was also the first Memphis player to be named an AP All-American since 2001-02.

He spent his redshirt freshman season at Tulsa, where he earned unanimous AAC Freshman of the Year honors in 2023-24 after averaging 21.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.9 steals per game. He became just the second Division I freshman in the past 30-plus years to average at least 21.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.5 steals in a single season.

And now the preseason accolades continue to roll in prior to causing sellout crowds at Bramlage Coliseum to go nuts in his junior season.

As fourth-year K-State head coach Jerome Tang bluntly puts it, "PJ Haggerty is the best point guard in America — and he's learning to be a great leader."

Earlier this week, Andy Katz ranked Haggerty as the second-best transfer player for 2025-26, and Haggerty was named a First Team All-American by CBBAnalytics, and a Third Team All-American by CBS Sports.

"It's a blessing to be recognized at the highest level of basketball," Haggerty says, as he begins a slow walk down a corridor at the T-Mobile Center for an ESPN interview. "I don't try to look too much into it. I'm more focused on what we can achieve at K-State as a team and reach the Final Four, which we've been preaching since the summer."

The college basketball expert projections for Haggerty as he teams up with Tang and what is regarded as the fourth-best transfer class in the country by 247Sports, are glowing.

ESPN national writer Jeff Borzello says, "After two significantly productive seasons at Tulsa then Memphis, Haggerty landed in a spot where he should be able to put up massive numbers."

And little did Haggerty know, but at 11:54 a.m., as he sat at a table alongside Bashir and Ikegwuruka and spoke with a throng of reporters, including nine TV cameras and a dozen cellphone cameras, another preseason honor hit the ESPN college basketball website: Jay Bilas named Haggerty as a First Team All-American.

"Haggerty should exceed his already elite scoring production from the past two seasons to promote himself from Second to First Team All-America honors," Bilas wrote.

The question becomes this: How did Haggerty end up at K-State?

Well, it goes back to that eighth grader who was king of the court back in Texas. One summer day, Patrick and Rashonda Haggerty drove young PJ 200 miles from Crosby to Waco to attend a Baylor basketball camp. Who was there at the basketball camp to greet PJ? A Baylor associate head coach named Jerome Tang.

Tang knew that Haggerty was a bucket getter at that young age. Tang was impressed with his ability to score.

But that's not what Tang remembers the most about the initial introduction between player and coach.

"What I remember about PJ is when I met him, he was a little shy, and when he shook my hand, it was a terrible handshake, and he didn't look me in the eyes," Tang says. "I stopped him, and I said, 'Hey, look me in the eyes and squeeze my hand. This is how you introduce yourself.' His mom remembered that."

Today, Haggerty grins at the memory.

"Coach Tang said that I had to shake his hand like a real man," he said. "Now we hug."

Haggerty left the Baylor basketball camp with a scholarship offer. And, oh, did the scholarship offers begin to pour in, as he was a four-star recruit and named 2022 Mr. Texas Basketball Player of the Year.

"Getting offers and getting recognized was a lot of fun," Haggerty says. "It was a lot of fun to try and go Division I and achieve my dreams."

Ultimately, Haggerty's basketball dreams took him to three different schools. K-State is his fourth.

"I thought TCU was best for me, and it was close to home, so I went there," Haggerty says. "Things didn't work out, so I decided to transfer to Tulsa and get new scenery. At Memphis, I liked most the bond I had with my teammates. We were very close. It's kind of crazy how you go someplace you don't know and don't know anybody, and they become some of your best friends and you experience some of the greatest moments of your life."

And now Haggerty is with Tang. At K-State. And in his first real season playing at a Power 4 basketball program, Haggerty leads a K-State team that is hungry to make a dent in the Big 12 Conference race and make a run to the NCAA Tournament.

"The Big 12 is the best conference, if not one of the best," Haggerty says, "and having the opportunity to compete against great coaches and other great players — with this group we have at K-State, it should be exciting."

On April 17, ESPN first reported that Haggerty, the AAC Player of the Year and Second Tteam All-American, opted to leave Memphis and entered the transfer portal. In May, Haggerty participated in the 2025 NBA Draft Combine, where he impressed during a scrimmage with 18 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.

On May 26, ESPN announced: "AAC Player of the Year and Consensus All-American PJ Haggerty has withdrawn from the NBA Draft and committed to Kansas State."

Boom.

Tang and Haggerty hadn't forgotten that bond forged during their meeting at Baylor basketball camp long ago. And Haggerty hadn't forgotten how Tang recruited him through high school. And he hadn't forgotten about Tang's special relationship with point guard Markquis Nowell during the Wildcats' run to the 2023 Elite Eight.

Haggerty calls his decision to come to K-State "a blessing."

"This team is one of the most special teams I've been a part of," Haggerty says. "There's just a chemistry and connection we have together. Everybody is so unselfish and does whatever it takes to win. That's very exciting."

Meanwhile, Haggerty's presence is very exciting for Tang, who has coached great talent over his coaching career between Baylor as an assistant coach and now in four seasons at K-State.

"Anytime you get to have an All-American with the ball in his hands in your backcourt," Tang says, "as a head coach, it gets you very excited."

But there's more to Haggerty's game.

"This year, PJ is required to be more of a leader than he's had to be before," Tang says. "Everybody else just wanted him to score buckets, not that it's a bad thing because he does that really well, but we need a little bit more from him, because we want to accomplish something greater. He's embraced it and he's diving into that role every single day.

"You just see growth every single day."

Much of that growth is attributed to K-State associate head coach Matthew Driscoll, a former fellow assistant coach with Tang at Baylor from 2003 to 2009, and who Tang hired to K-State in May after Driscoll enjoyed the winningest career in history during a 16-year stint as head coach at North Florida. A noted offensive mastermind, Driscoll has infused the Wildcats with offensive energy that, coupled with Haggerty, could be quite an explosive concoction this season.

"Coach Driscoll draws up some great offensive plays," Haggerty says. "At the end of the day, players make plays. If action doesn't work, we have to make plays for ourselves and each other. Coach Driscoll is an everyday guy. He's the same person. He's hyped. He loves us and he loves offense. He makes the game simple for us to get easy shots and great shots, too."

Driscoll says that Haggerty's abilities have "already elevated" from last season.

"When you get PJ on the floor as a player and see him on a daily basis, there are a lot more things he can do that really didn't meet the statistical/analytical data he had last year," Driscoll says. "When you play in different systems and with different coaches, there are certain things that maybe don't get exposed. His ability to pass, to find guys, to understand there's a greater picture, and to stay within himself as a very confident scorer and a guy who shot 274 free throws is impressive.

"It's been cool to see there's a lot more to his game than just his natural ability in getting 22 points a game last year. If you can score, you can score. The one thing he's embraced is when you score you create more help and double- or triple-teams, so what can you do in those red zones? When Patrick Mahomes gets into the red zone, the angles are much tighter, the windows are much quicker to be closed. The thing about PJ that's been really cool is he's been able to find his pivot, find two hands, and find that ability to spray the ball — play and spray."

And it's that passing ability that draws applause from Tang.

"I like guards who can score and put pressure on the defense, and, man, he can do that, but he's a terrific passer," Tang says. "He's a willing passer, and he's a way-better ball-screen reader, but he was never required to do that before. He's capable of making reads in the ball screen and getting other guys involved. The shot clock, 20 times a game, there's going to be a situation where the shot clock is running down, and that dude can create space and get his short or get fouled and go to the free-throw line."

Haggerty welcomes the opportunity to become an even more dangerous passing threat.

"More people see me as a scorer," Haggerty says. "On this team, I'm playing point guard, dominant on-ball, so I'll be able to show off my passing skills."

Haggerty will get his first chance to show off his skills along with the rest of the Wildcats when they travel to face Missouri in their exhibition opener on Friday at 7:00 p.m. K-State will also host Newman in an exhibition game on October 31 before the Wildcats officially open the season against UNC Greensboro on November 4 at Bramlage Coliseum.

Haggerty takes pride in putting on his purple K-State jersey.

"It means a lot," he says. "It's more than just putting on your jersey. You take care of the name on the front of the jersey, and the back will always be taken care of.

"I'm going to represent K-State with pride."

It's something he could've never envisioned back in the eighth grade. Now he's a grown man, with a firm handshake, with a look in the eyes, and with an announcement as much as an introduction.

"I'm PJ Haggerty."

He's an All-American.

And the best point guard in America.

Kansas State University Athletics

Players Mentioned

Abdi Bashir Jr.

Mobi Ikegwuruka

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