Jerome Tang loses three more Kansas State basketball players to transfer portal
The list of Kansas State’s departing men’s basketball transfers continues to grow.
Three more players entered their names into the NCAA transfer portal on Monday.
Maximus Edwards, a 6-foot-5 freshman wing from Stratford, Connecticut, was first to announce that he will leave the Wildcats and continue his college hoops career with a new team. He was the sixth K-State player to exit since Jerome Tang was hired to replace Bruce Weber as coach nearly two weeks ago. He was quickly joined by Davion Bradford and Kaosi Ezeagu, bringing the transfer total to eight.
That means K-State fans may struggle to recognize the roster that Tang leads onto the court next season at Bramlage Coliseum.
His list of returning scholarship players is currently low.
Seryee Lewis, Carlton Linguard, Luke Kasubke, Selton Miguel, Nijel Pack, Ezeagu, Bradford and Edwards have all announced their intentions to play elsewhere.
That leaves three scholarship players who are set to return: Markquis Nowell, Ismael Massoud and Logan Landers.
K-State is now facing a complete rebuild under Tang. Only time will tell if that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Tang now has nine open scholarships to use this spring as he works to reshape a roster that only won 14 games this past season. If he hits on the right combination of high school recruits and transfers, fans may not miss many of K-State’s departing transfers, outside of Pack. But it will be hard for a roster full of young or developmental players to win immediately.
K-State coaches will need to look for new players in the transfer portal if they hope to climb up the conference standings next season. They have started to do exactly that and have reached out to several transfers, including Illinois guard Andre Curbelo, East Carolina guard Tristen Newton, West Virginia guard Sean McNeil, LSU wing Brandon Murray, Jackson State forward Jayveous McKinnis and Bradley guard Terry Roberts.
Tang had also offered Longwood guard Justin Hill, but he already committed to Georgia.
Pack is obviously the biggest loss that K-State has suffered this far. The sophomore guard averaged 17.4 points last season and earned first-team All-Big 12 honors. He eclipsed 30 points in three different games and was arguably the best pure shooter in the conference. His scoring won’t be easily replaced.
Miguel was also a steady contributor over the past two seasons. K-State probably would have liked to have kept him. Kasubke, Linguard and Lewis were never more than reserves. Edwards never played in a single game while he recovered from injuries.
Edwards signed with K-State last year as a three-star recruit. The majority of his other offers came from mid-major schools located in the northeast.
Ezeagu came to K-State via Texas-El Paso and started 18 games with the Wildcats as a center. The 6-foot-10 forward averaged 4.2 points and 2.7 rebounds as a junior this past season.
Bradford is a former four-star recruit who got off to a promising start at K-State as a freshman, averaging 7.7 points and 4.3 rebounds inside. But he took a major step backward as a sophomore and only averaged 3.3 points and 1.9 rebounds.
He will look to reboot his college career elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, Tang will look to completely overhaul K-State’s basketball roster before he coaches his first game.
This story was originally published April 4, 2022 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Jerome Tang loses three more Kansas State basketball players to transfer portal."