A Season-Opening Display by the Backcourt

By: D. Scott Fritchen

On a day that preseason All-American guard PJ Haggerty garnered another preseason Player of the Year watch-list accolade, the junior transfer issued a memorable opening statement in a Kansas State jersey — with new teammate Nate Johnson close behind. Haggerty scored a game-high 27 points and Johnson nearly reached a triple-double as the Wildcats overcame a halftime deficit to thump UNC Greensboro, 93-64, at Bramlage Coliseum.

Haggerty, who on Tuesday was named to the 2025-26 Jersey Mike's Naismith Trophy Men's College Player of the Year award, averaged 21.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists en route to consensus Second Team All-America honors last season at Memphis.

At times, it appeared that the 6-foot-4, 195-pounder hardly broke a sweat in his No. 4 K-State jersey.

"I wouldn't say it was easy," Haggerty said. "My teammates and coaches put me in a great position to be great on the court, whether I'm scoring of making plays. It just allows me to be myself and have fun.

"Amazing feeling out there. I love the fans and my teammates and coaches. It's always great to get a win. Winning is hard. It was a great feeling."

Johnson went to the bench with 2 minutes, 50 seconds remaining after posting 22 points, nine rebounds and nine assists. Johnson, who plays larger than his 6-foot-3, 215-pound frame, muscled for points inside the post and sizzled from long range. Johnson shot 8-of-11 from the floor and made 6-of-7 3-pointers — the most 3-pointers by a K-State player in a season opener in more than 20 years.

"I played off my teammates," Johnson said. "Guys like PJ go downhill and make plays. They have confidence in me to shoot the ball."

As for narrowly missing out on a triple-double?

"I'm just going to keep playing hard," Johnson replied. "I'm glad I didn't know because I would've tried to strive to get it. I wasn't mad."

There didn't seem to be any anger, either, as K-State went to the locker room facing a 34-33 deficit after a first half that featured two ties and seven lead changes. K-State led for less than three minutes in the first half. The Wildcats calmy regrouped to outscore the Spartans 60-30 the rest of the way to improve to 31-3 all-time in Bramlage Coliseum openers.

"I don't know if there was anything I said at halftime as much as just trying to get them to relax," K-State head coach Jerome Tang said. "I just thought we were tight and pressed. We just told them to play together. We had eight turnovers at the 10-minute mark and most of our points were unassisted. You're not playing good basketball if you're scoring a lot of unassisted buckets. It's a lot of one-on-one, and we didn't want to do that."

K-State shot 40% in the first half and 59.5% in the second half. K-State shot just 30% on 3-pointers in the first half and 64.7% in the second half. The Wildcats finished with 22 assists on 34 made field goals, finished with a 42-31 advantage on the boards, and forced UNC Greensboro into 18 turnovers.

"We saw the mistakes we made and overcame them and came out with the win," Johnson said. "We came together and rallied together. First-game jitters. For some people, this is a different scene for them. We talk about adversity all the time."

While Johnson made the Spartans pay with a long-range touch that could cause problems nightly for opponents, junior transfer Abdi Bashir, Jr., who ranked No. 2 in Division I basketball with 127 3-pointers last season at Monmouth, shot 4-of-8 from beyond the arc in his first game with the Wildcats, who finished shooting 14-of-27 from long range.

Haggerty earlier stated that the Haggerty-Johnson-Bashir trio could be the best backcourt in college basketball this season.

"I agree that they're one of the best backcourts in the country," Tang said. "I believe the other three guys that they play with add to that. I have six of them that can play anywhere. Now we just have to help them play together better.

"What we did in the second half wasn't an anomaly. I believe we can play like that all the time."

Johnson transferred to K-State after three seasons at Akron, where he averaged 14.0 points his junior season, and posted five 20-point games and one 30-point contest in his 92-game career with the Zips.

Johnson hadn't ever approached a triple-double, though. Until now.

"He did a lot of everything," Tang said. "He was like a plus-47 when he was on the floor. It probably wasn't a very good sub by my having him on the bench during that one stretch there. Nate, PJ and Abdi are really good guards."

Tang called Haggerty's debut performance "OK."

"It's nice to have a guy who can go get his shot at any time," Tang continued. "PJ wants to be a point guard, and point guards are judged just like pitchers, on wins and losses. That's what he'll be judged on, not if he scores 27. It's did we win, or did we lose? Is he leading us and helping us get better? He's going to continue to learn how to manage the game a little bit different. There were some times where he forced some things that he didn't need to. My evaluation of his game isn't on the stat sheet. It's on the film."

Meanwhile, Haggerty couldn't get over the efforts by his new teammate, Johnson, who he smiled with and whispered with while sitting at the podium at the postgame news conference.

"He was hooping," Haggerty said. "Almost a triple-double. I expect nothing less. He has a feel for the game on defense and offense. He had a great game.

"We're just going to keep capitalizing."

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