Kansas State basketball coach Jerome Tang on the start of practices
Kansas State basketball coach Jerome Tang talks about the official start of basketball practice Tuesday.
K-State Athletics
MANHATTAN — As if Jerome Tang needed a reminder that his Kansas State basketball team’s first official practice was just a day away, he got one anyway Monday.
“I was excited to wake up this morning and feel a chill in the air and know it’s basketball season,” Tang said.
Not that this will be the first time gets together with his new team, which returns just three players from the 2023-24 season. The fact of the matter is they’ve been together for the most part since the middle of the summer.
“I was super excited that we got to have everybody through July,” said Tang, whose Wildcats start the season Nov. 5 against New Orleans at Bramlage Coliseum. “This is my first time, three seasons now, third season, and I never had a whole team in July, so that’s really exciting.
“And then we had a really good preseason, so I was excited about that, and now I’m really excited about the next step in this whole process. We’ve got 43 days before our first game, and I’m excited about seeing how far we can go from here until then.”
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Despite the high turnover — super-senior forward David N’Guessan is the only returning player who saw significant playing time last year — Tang completed his roster by early summer, which was not the case in his first two seasons.
That has helped the newcomers, which include eight Division I transfers, one junior college transfer, a freshman and a walk-on, to get acclimated earlier than usual.
“I feel really comfortable around them, and I think they feel comfortable around each other,” Tang said. “But (during) our two-hour practice (Monday), there’s probably three or four things I have to stop and explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”
The start of practice follows Tang’s annual Shark Week, a sort of boot camp.
“Shark Week is Shark Week. They did a great job of attacking it. Before that we went on a team retreat,” Tang said. “There’s a lot of psychological challenges, mental stuff that they have to overcome in that and the team retreat, and they did a good job of that.”
Kansas State basketball roster breakdown
Returning lettermen: F David N’Guessan; F Taj Manning; F Macaleab Rich.
Division I transfers: PG Dug McDaniel (Michigan); G Max Jones (Cal State Fullerton); G Brendan Hausen (Villanova); F Achor Achor (Samford); F Baye Fall (Arkansas); F Coleman Hawkins (Illinois); C Ugonna Onyenso (Kentucky).
Junior college transfer: F Mobi Ikegwuruka (Ellsworth CC in Iowa)
High school: G David Castillo (Sunrise Christian)
Walk-on: G Spencer Bain (Flagler College)
Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen.
