Alexander, Players Talk the Start of the Season
Sep 28, 2026 | Men's Basketball
Watch Casey Alexander’s Media AvailabilityWatch Abraham/Vice Media AvailabilityListen on Podcast Page
The Wildcats officially began practice on September 21.
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State head men's basketball coach Casey Alexander, along with players junior Isaiah Abraham and senior Brock Vice, met with the media on Monday afternoon (September 28) as the Wildcats work towards the start of the 2026-27 season.
Links to the video are above with a transcript of Alexander and player availability below.
The Wildcats officially began practice on September 21, as the first-year head coach and his staff welcome 14 players for the 2026-27 season. Abraham, who spent time at both UConn and Georgetown, and Vice, who previously played at Murray State, are among 10 Division I transfers.
K-State recently announced its Big 12 schedule, which includes nine home games, including visits by NCAA Tournament Arizona, Houston, Kansas, TCU and Texas Tech. In all, the Wildcats will play 19 home games in 2026-27, including the exhibition opener with Missouri on Friday, Oct. 23 and the season opener against South Dakota State on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Season tickets are currently on sale to the general public. Single-game tickets for the 10-game non-conference schedule go on sale this week. Fans can purchase tickets by calling toll free at (800) 221.CATS (2287) and/or online at www.kstatesports.com/tickets.
HEAD COACH CASEY ALEXANDER
On the focus of improvement with the start of practice…
"Oh gosh, there's a lot of something that we need to improve. It's pretty early. I mean, my greatest concerns right now aren't so much where I see a real deficiency. It's more 14 new faces, new staff, new everything, and I remember when (head football coach) Collin (Klein) was getting ready to start, and he talked about when the bullets start flying, things can change. Like that's really my greatest concern is getting ready for those moments, and it's pretty hard to actually get ready for them until you're in them."
On where you have seen the great growth since you started…
"Oh, I mean, we've covered a lot. But again, like we just left a staff meeting about today's practice, and basketball has a lot of possibilities and it's a game of mistakes, and so we're trying to get as close to perfect as we can, but of all the scenarios, there's still a lot of room for growth, no matter what. I mean, when you think about everything being brand new, and you look back to June 1 when we started, and as we sit here today, like it is amazing how far along we are, what all we've covered, the culture piece and camaraderie that comes together pretty quickly, honestly. You do install for basic offense and defense, and that's comes along okay. But I mean, we could definitely play a game today if we needed to and we're still five weeks away from our first real game, so we've covered a lot."
On the goal of getting to the NCAA Tournament…
"That's definitely our expectation. We're not naive to the fact that that's not an easy accomplishment for this team this year. But at the same time, I think that we have what we need. I think we'll have a good plan. I think we should expect to win games. I think being in a league that's going to get eight, nine, ten teams in it. If we're walking into this thinking we're not one of those, then we're probably not doing ourselves justice."
On Andrej Kostic's improvement this offseason…
"He's come a long way in just kind of controlling what he can control. He still has a long way to go though. Honestly, I mean first of all he's been injured quite a bit, which has set him back. That's prohibited him from making the advancements that he wants to. But a lot of his real growth for me needed to just be his ability to move on from one play to the next, a little higher level of maturity and keeping things in perspective and those kinds of things. And I think he's not wearing the weight of the world on his shoulders quite as much."
On the goal of the NCAA Tournament in his first season…
"It's not so much this year because it's year one or this team or anything like that. It's just NCAA Tournament. It's not an easy, not an easy accomplishment. And this league is a really tough league, and it's important to stay healthy. It's important to not let a game or two losing streaks turn into a four or five game losing streaks. Those kinds of things. But I believe in this team. I wouldn't mention that. It's not fool's gold. I think that we have good pieces. I think that we're a really smart team. I think we'll play really hard. I think we'll play really well together. And I think that's a good formula for winning. It always has been for us. And I think this team can do that."
On the Big 12 schedule and how it sets up…
"Gave it really no thought. I'm totally indifferent as far as who we play and when. I know those things are going to balance themselves out over the course of 18 games. The three opponents that we have to play twice are really the only thing that matters to me, and we can't control that at all. But everything else, you're going to play all those teams, and you already know who you're going to play on the road and who you're going to play at home, and you're not going to play too many on the road in a row or too many at home in a row, so I didn't care about that really at all."
On Isaiah Abraham's growth and expectations for the season…
"It's great to have him back. Like he did virtually nothing with us as a group this summer. He was around and very active, but he didn't do any five on five, and so he's going to be an important piece to our team. He's got a lot of versatility on both ends of the floor. Good physical presence for a perimeter player. He's probably what we talked about with him in recruiting. He's never been an offensive dynamo. You know where he's played, and we wanted to unleash some of that. We thought he had more potential than what he had been able to show, and he's definitely proven us right to this point. I don't think it's the strength of his game necessarily, but he can make contributions on the offensive end that he hasn't really had a chance to make in the past."
On what Brock Vice has done well to earn the trust of his teammates and to be named a captain…
"On the first day he acted like he belonged and played that way. And I think it's really admirable. You take a guy who's this is his fourth stop, and he's had no individual success to speak of at any of those stops, and he comes into the highest level that he's ever played, and he's very vocal. He's got great energy. He's a really tough kid. He plays with a lot of confidence. People kind of gravitate to him naturally, and his performance has been outstanding. I could go a lot of different directions with this, but he kind of he thrives in chaos a little bit, and offensively we can look that way sometimes. And so, rather than having to learn these 20 sets and fit into this role, he's been in a position where we just ask him to go be a player a little bit, and he's performed very well."
On the freedom of the offense and whether everybody has the ability to be a stretch player…
"No, I mean not equally, at all. I had two great post players on my team last year. Neither one of them shot threes at all. One of them was a first-team all-conference player and was a great player. We are always going to play to strengths and weaknesses, and I do want guys to have a lot of freedom, and they do. But we still, guys still know where they can help us the most. It's not equal opportunity for shot selection, decision making, ball handling, things like that. That's because we coach those things the same way you would if it was your team."
On the focus of high school recruiting…
"It's been a strength of our staffs' evaluation in the recruiting process, high school or portal, and finding guys who fit us on the floor, off the floor, know what it means to be a team, play with high IQ. Like that's been a real strength of ours is identifying those guys and then developing them over time. And the developing them over time is a lot more difficult because of the transfer portal. But it's still something that we're committed to. There are a lot more dynamics that go into it. I mean, you talk about you've got budgets, you've got kind of roster balance, things like that. But we want high school players if we can get them. Five years ago, high school recruiting was go find the best player that you can sign. Well, now it's go get the best player that you can sign and afford to pay, and it doesn't disrupt something that down here that you're paying. Like there's more strategy to it than ever before. It's not quite as easy as just going to find good players."
On his daily schedule…
"I mean, I got here. I don't know, 7:30 (am). I had my first meeting at nine with some coaches. Then we met at 10. Then we met at 11. We just finished the practice plan. Now I got you guys (media). We'll meet with the team at 1:15 (pm). Then they'll lift. Then they'll practice, and then we'll watch today's practice, and then we'll get ready for tomorrow."
On his first meeting with the team and his message…
"It was in this room. Yeah, we started our workouts June 1, so it was May 31. It had nothing to do with anything. It was entirely what the expectations are, of who we wanted to be. Accountability is really important to me. Just guys that do what they're supposed to do, guys who represent K-State well, guys who play together. Guys who aren't entitled, guys who have a lot of self-discipline. That's really, really important to me. And if we can get that part right, we got a much better chance to win games. I think we can figure some stuff out about how to play. But it's really important to us that we get all that other stuff right. And we're not ever going to be perfect, but it's been it's been a real reason for our success historically."
On what he loves most about the job…
The journey of a season is my favorite part of coaching, starting at zero and seeing how far you can go. And now the zero line is a little different from year to year, because of retention and you know how long you've been in a certain place, but this year we literally started at zero. You know, almost every staff member knew Andrej (Kostic) was the only player that came back, but that was a different staff, so he was new to us. We were new to him. So, there's just great joy in going through that with a group and collectively trying to determine how you can all get the job done. To the extent where you call it a success, and success is measured in different ways. But you know, that's what I love the most about this job."
On when he will determine a starting five…
"I mean, it could change at the last moment. You know, I mean, it's so rare that even if everybody's healthy, there aren't starting lineup changes. You know, but health is going to dictate that to a great degree. Timo (Malovec), I would have said, is a guaranteed starter if you'd asked me this summer, but he hasn't been practicing since we've been back. So, things like that really kind of determine the answer to that question. But we probably know who a few of them are going to be. We've got a scrimmage with Tulsa, and we've got two exhibition games, and so those things will tell us a lot. We'll learn more from two, three, four games of competition than we have in the last six months of practice."
On his staff roles…
"I think we had a good plan coming in. I think we have really good balance for what we want. You know, the Belmont guys that came that understand terminology and drills and kind of lead the way a little bit has been really helpful. But you know the other guys are well versed and experienced and have been head coaches and so that part's definitely home run. I mean really quality people but really good basketball coaches and very well connected to each other."
On the guys stepping up as leaders…
"Well, we have 14 players. The players pick the captains, and I think we had six different guys get votes, so I think we have some good leadership. I think we've got some good experience. I've said this too. We don't have a lot of superstars coming in here from the portal that raises eyebrows, but we have a lot of players that have really good experience. Like if we had all those guys coming back to the same team, everybody would think we were going to be good. I mean that's a ton of high-level experience and really accomplished players. Roles are going to be different. We need a lot of those guys to outperform what they've done previously. I'm not concerned about having enough guys who have been here and done it. It's just we're just going to have some guys be better than they've been. Brock Vice is a good example. It wouldn't take much for him to be better than he's been, but he's going to be a lot better than he's been."
On guys outperforming their previous performances…
"Brandon (Rechsteiner) was the leading scorer last year in a really good Mountain West league. He's a fourth-year guy. (Jaden) Schutt's a fifth-year guy. He's played 25 minutes a game in the last two seasons in the ACC. (Dez) Lindsey played 20 minutes a game in the Big Ten last year. (Isaiah) Abraham started almost every game in the Big East last year. (Montana) Wheeler was an all-freshman player. Played 22 minutes a game in a really good Missouri Valley league for a really good Bradley team. And then there's other ones out there. Like we've got guys who've been around, but we've got to put the pieces together. And every team's going to have leading scorers and best players, and we know pretty much what that's going to look like at this point in time. I didn't mention JT (Rock) and Pape (N'Diaye). We got a lot of guys that can make contributions."
On year one at other coaching stops…
"(At Belmont) we had a lot of guys returning. They were young. They were really young. But I mean, this is the fourth time I've taken over a new team. I have learned plenty from when I got my first job at Stetson to when I went to Lipscomb to when I went to Belmont. Every circumstance has been different. They require different kind of strategy, but hopefully, I've gotten a little wiser with age and having gone through it before. I feel good about that. I think one of my strengths is kind of the management piece of all that, you know, and being organized enough with a good enough plan to see all that stuff come together, and I feel confident in that part of it."
How to follow the 'Cats: For complete information on K-State men's basketball, visit www.kstatesports.com and follow the team's social media channels on X, Instagram and Facebook.
Links to the video are above with a transcript of Alexander and player availability below.
The Wildcats officially began practice on September 21, as the first-year head coach and his staff welcome 14 players for the 2026-27 season. Abraham, who spent time at both UConn and Georgetown, and Vice, who previously played at Murray State, are among 10 Division I transfers.
K-State recently announced its Big 12 schedule, which includes nine home games, including visits by NCAA Tournament Arizona, Houston, Kansas, TCU and Texas Tech. In all, the Wildcats will play 19 home games in 2026-27, including the exhibition opener with Missouri on Friday, Oct. 23 and the season opener against South Dakota State on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Season tickets are currently on sale to the general public. Single-game tickets for the 10-game non-conference schedule go on sale this week. Fans can purchase tickets by calling toll free at (800) 221.CATS (2287) and/or online at www.kstatesports.com/tickets.
HEAD COACH CASEY ALEXANDER
On the focus of improvement with the start of practice…
"Oh gosh, there's a lot of something that we need to improve. It's pretty early. I mean, my greatest concerns right now aren't so much where I see a real deficiency. It's more 14 new faces, new staff, new everything, and I remember when (head football coach) Collin (Klein) was getting ready to start, and he talked about when the bullets start flying, things can change. Like that's really my greatest concern is getting ready for those moments, and it's pretty hard to actually get ready for them until you're in them."
On where you have seen the great growth since you started…
"Oh, I mean, we've covered a lot. But again, like we just left a staff meeting about today's practice, and basketball has a lot of possibilities and it's a game of mistakes, and so we're trying to get as close to perfect as we can, but of all the scenarios, there's still a lot of room for growth, no matter what. I mean, when you think about everything being brand new, and you look back to June 1 when we started, and as we sit here today, like it is amazing how far along we are, what all we've covered, the culture piece and camaraderie that comes together pretty quickly, honestly. You do install for basic offense and defense, and that's comes along okay. But I mean, we could definitely play a game today if we needed to and we're still five weeks away from our first real game, so we've covered a lot."
On the goal of getting to the NCAA Tournament…
"That's definitely our expectation. We're not naive to the fact that that's not an easy accomplishment for this team this year. But at the same time, I think that we have what we need. I think we'll have a good plan. I think we should expect to win games. I think being in a league that's going to get eight, nine, ten teams in it. If we're walking into this thinking we're not one of those, then we're probably not doing ourselves justice."
On Andrej Kostic's improvement this offseason…
"He's come a long way in just kind of controlling what he can control. He still has a long way to go though. Honestly, I mean first of all he's been injured quite a bit, which has set him back. That's prohibited him from making the advancements that he wants to. But a lot of his real growth for me needed to just be his ability to move on from one play to the next, a little higher level of maturity and keeping things in perspective and those kinds of things. And I think he's not wearing the weight of the world on his shoulders quite as much."
On the goal of the NCAA Tournament in his first season…
"It's not so much this year because it's year one or this team or anything like that. It's just NCAA Tournament. It's not an easy, not an easy accomplishment. And this league is a really tough league, and it's important to stay healthy. It's important to not let a game or two losing streaks turn into a four or five game losing streaks. Those kinds of things. But I believe in this team. I wouldn't mention that. It's not fool's gold. I think that we have good pieces. I think that we're a really smart team. I think we'll play really hard. I think we'll play really well together. And I think that's a good formula for winning. It always has been for us. And I think this team can do that."
On the Big 12 schedule and how it sets up…
"Gave it really no thought. I'm totally indifferent as far as who we play and when. I know those things are going to balance themselves out over the course of 18 games. The three opponents that we have to play twice are really the only thing that matters to me, and we can't control that at all. But everything else, you're going to play all those teams, and you already know who you're going to play on the road and who you're going to play at home, and you're not going to play too many on the road in a row or too many at home in a row, so I didn't care about that really at all."
On Isaiah Abraham's growth and expectations for the season…
"It's great to have him back. Like he did virtually nothing with us as a group this summer. He was around and very active, but he didn't do any five on five, and so he's going to be an important piece to our team. He's got a lot of versatility on both ends of the floor. Good physical presence for a perimeter player. He's probably what we talked about with him in recruiting. He's never been an offensive dynamo. You know where he's played, and we wanted to unleash some of that. We thought he had more potential than what he had been able to show, and he's definitely proven us right to this point. I don't think it's the strength of his game necessarily, but he can make contributions on the offensive end that he hasn't really had a chance to make in the past."
On what Brock Vice has done well to earn the trust of his teammates and to be named a captain…
"On the first day he acted like he belonged and played that way. And I think it's really admirable. You take a guy who's this is his fourth stop, and he's had no individual success to speak of at any of those stops, and he comes into the highest level that he's ever played, and he's very vocal. He's got great energy. He's a really tough kid. He plays with a lot of confidence. People kind of gravitate to him naturally, and his performance has been outstanding. I could go a lot of different directions with this, but he kind of he thrives in chaos a little bit, and offensively we can look that way sometimes. And so, rather than having to learn these 20 sets and fit into this role, he's been in a position where we just ask him to go be a player a little bit, and he's performed very well."
On the freedom of the offense and whether everybody has the ability to be a stretch player…
"No, I mean not equally, at all. I had two great post players on my team last year. Neither one of them shot threes at all. One of them was a first-team all-conference player and was a great player. We are always going to play to strengths and weaknesses, and I do want guys to have a lot of freedom, and they do. But we still, guys still know where they can help us the most. It's not equal opportunity for shot selection, decision making, ball handling, things like that. That's because we coach those things the same way you would if it was your team."
On the focus of high school recruiting…
"It's been a strength of our staffs' evaluation in the recruiting process, high school or portal, and finding guys who fit us on the floor, off the floor, know what it means to be a team, play with high IQ. Like that's been a real strength of ours is identifying those guys and then developing them over time. And the developing them over time is a lot more difficult because of the transfer portal. But it's still something that we're committed to. There are a lot more dynamics that go into it. I mean, you talk about you've got budgets, you've got kind of roster balance, things like that. But we want high school players if we can get them. Five years ago, high school recruiting was go find the best player that you can sign. Well, now it's go get the best player that you can sign and afford to pay, and it doesn't disrupt something that down here that you're paying. Like there's more strategy to it than ever before. It's not quite as easy as just going to find good players."
On his daily schedule…
"I mean, I got here. I don't know, 7:30 (am). I had my first meeting at nine with some coaches. Then we met at 10. Then we met at 11. We just finished the practice plan. Now I got you guys (media). We'll meet with the team at 1:15 (pm). Then they'll lift. Then they'll practice, and then we'll watch today's practice, and then we'll get ready for tomorrow."
On his first meeting with the team and his message…
"It was in this room. Yeah, we started our workouts June 1, so it was May 31. It had nothing to do with anything. It was entirely what the expectations are, of who we wanted to be. Accountability is really important to me. Just guys that do what they're supposed to do, guys who represent K-State well, guys who play together. Guys who aren't entitled, guys who have a lot of self-discipline. That's really, really important to me. And if we can get that part right, we got a much better chance to win games. I think we can figure some stuff out about how to play. But it's really important to us that we get all that other stuff right. And we're not ever going to be perfect, but it's been it's been a real reason for our success historically."
On what he loves most about the job…
The journey of a season is my favorite part of coaching, starting at zero and seeing how far you can go. And now the zero line is a little different from year to year, because of retention and you know how long you've been in a certain place, but this year we literally started at zero. You know, almost every staff member knew Andrej (Kostic) was the only player that came back, but that was a different staff, so he was new to us. We were new to him. So, there's just great joy in going through that with a group and collectively trying to determine how you can all get the job done. To the extent where you call it a success, and success is measured in different ways. But you know, that's what I love the most about this job."
On when he will determine a starting five…
"I mean, it could change at the last moment. You know, I mean, it's so rare that even if everybody's healthy, there aren't starting lineup changes. You know, but health is going to dictate that to a great degree. Timo (Malovec), I would have said, is a guaranteed starter if you'd asked me this summer, but he hasn't been practicing since we've been back. So, things like that really kind of determine the answer to that question. But we probably know who a few of them are going to be. We've got a scrimmage with Tulsa, and we've got two exhibition games, and so those things will tell us a lot. We'll learn more from two, three, four games of competition than we have in the last six months of practice."
On his staff roles…
"I think we had a good plan coming in. I think we have really good balance for what we want. You know, the Belmont guys that came that understand terminology and drills and kind of lead the way a little bit has been really helpful. But you know the other guys are well versed and experienced and have been head coaches and so that part's definitely home run. I mean really quality people but really good basketball coaches and very well connected to each other."
On the guys stepping up as leaders…
"Well, we have 14 players. The players pick the captains, and I think we had six different guys get votes, so I think we have some good leadership. I think we've got some good experience. I've said this too. We don't have a lot of superstars coming in here from the portal that raises eyebrows, but we have a lot of players that have really good experience. Like if we had all those guys coming back to the same team, everybody would think we were going to be good. I mean that's a ton of high-level experience and really accomplished players. Roles are going to be different. We need a lot of those guys to outperform what they've done previously. I'm not concerned about having enough guys who have been here and done it. It's just we're just going to have some guys be better than they've been. Brock Vice is a good example. It wouldn't take much for him to be better than he's been, but he's going to be a lot better than he's been."
On guys outperforming their previous performances…
"Brandon (Rechsteiner) was the leading scorer last year in a really good Mountain West league. He's a fourth-year guy. (Jaden) Schutt's a fifth-year guy. He's played 25 minutes a game in the last two seasons in the ACC. (Dez) Lindsey played 20 minutes a game in the Big Ten last year. (Isaiah) Abraham started almost every game in the Big East last year. (Montana) Wheeler was an all-freshman player. Played 22 minutes a game in a really good Missouri Valley league for a really good Bradley team. And then there's other ones out there. Like we've got guys who've been around, but we've got to put the pieces together. And every team's going to have leading scorers and best players, and we know pretty much what that's going to look like at this point in time. I didn't mention JT (Rock) and Pape (N'Diaye). We got a lot of guys that can make contributions."
On year one at other coaching stops…
"(At Belmont) we had a lot of guys returning. They were young. They were really young. But I mean, this is the fourth time I've taken over a new team. I have learned plenty from when I got my first job at Stetson to when I went to Lipscomb to when I went to Belmont. Every circumstance has been different. They require different kind of strategy, but hopefully, I've gotten a little wiser with age and having gone through it before. I feel good about that. I think one of my strengths is kind of the management piece of all that, you know, and being organized enough with a good enough plan to see all that stuff come together, and I feel confident in that part of it."
How to follow the 'Cats: For complete information on K-State men's basketball, visit www.kstatesports.com and follow the team's social media channels on X, Instagram and Facebook.
Players Mentioned
Monday, September 28
Monday, September 28
Friday, September 25
Thursday, August 27
