K-State Q&A: Coleman Hawkins, Jerome Tang and another losing streak for the Wildcats
It’s time for another K-State Q&A.
Let’s dive right into your questions about the Wildcats this week. Thanks, as always, for providing them.
Is Coleman Hawkins done for the season? - Jeff M. via e-mail
I don’t think so.
He is working hard to recover from his injury. He has been spotted on stationary bikes at practice and he has not worn a walking boot to games. Those are good signs.
I also think it will be very difficult for him to remain on the sideline when Iowa State comes to town or when K-State heads to the Big 12 Tournament.
Jerome Tang said it’s possible that Hawkins will be ready to play against Colorado on Sunday. But there is no timetable for his return. All options are on the table right now.
“Coleman is doing a great job rehabbing and doing a great job doing everything that is asked of him,” Tang said. “Coleman has a bright future ahead of him and we aren’t going to do anything to jeopardize that. When he is ready, he will come back. If that’s next game, great. If it’s not, I’m OK with that because I am in it for the long haul with that young fella.”
As a fan who isn’t particularly tapped into the K-State men’s basketball team right now, what’s the fan consensus of Tang and the squad? Has this season been a let down? Are fans starting to question Tang? What’s the feelings going on around the team? -@J_Anderson675 via X.
Fans are disappointed.
There is no doubt about that.
Unless K-State can make a miracle run through the Big 12 Tournament it will miss the NCAA Tournament for the second straight season. The Wildcats are also in danger of finishing the year with a losing record.
None of that is acceptable. This season will go down as a failure.
Beyond that, it’s hard to gauge disappointment levels across the fan base. You don’t want to look on K-State X after losses. But that is probably true of any college fan base when it comes to social media after their team suffers a defeat. Most of the fans I talk to are more measured with their thoughts. Yes, it’s been a bad season. No, the basketball program is not falling off a cliff.
The biggest concern I’ve heard lately is about Tang’s first year possibly being a fluke. K-State won 26 games and reached the Elite Eight that season. It was a smashing success. But he also had Markquis Nowell (a point guard that Bruce Weber recruited) and Keyontae Johnson (a transfer Tang landed at the last minute).
Without them, the Wildcats dropped to 19 wins and the NIT in Year 2. Their win total is going to fall again in Year 3.
Not good.
Some fans think Tang tricked K-State into giving him a massive contract extension last year. But his approval rating is still (much?) higher than the final years of Weber, even though the results haven’t been much different this year.
I used to get 15 questions a week on here about when Weber might get fired. I haven’t gotten that many on Tang all year.
It’s also worth noting that the past six years have been unkind to K-State basketball, other than Tang’s first season.
2020: 11-21
2021: 9-20
2022: 14-17
2023: 26-10
2024: 19-15
2025: 13-15 (with three games remaining in the regular season)
Tang isn’t on the hot seat. The six-game winning streak that K-State had earlier this month was enough for him to avoid a truly disastrous season. And his buyout is far too expensive for the Wildcats to pay right now. He deserves more time, anyway. So even though most fans are disappointed, they have no choice but to hope he can pull a Dennis Gates and turn things around in a big way next season.
Why does Jerome Tang think the season is salvageable? Also, why does he expect students to show up to games? He has a lot of questions to answer at the end of the year -@DarthWillie via X.
I’m not going to criticize Jerome Tang for thinking that K-State can end the season on a high note.
If the head coach doesn’t believe in his team, who will?
The beautiful thing about college basketball is that even the worst Big 12 teams can dream about a national championship until they are eliminated from the conference tournament. It wasn’t long ago that K-State won six games in a row and played like the top-rated team in the country. I’m sure Tang is thinking that the Wildcats can go on another winning streak and make some noise in Kansas City.
To be clear, I don’t expect that to happen. I think this team is fading fast and will be lucky to avoid ending the year with a losing record. The Wildcats have lost four in a row and Bart Torvik rates them at No. 164 nationally during that time. They also aren’t healthy, as Coleman Hawkins remains sidelined.
Still, I have no problem with a coach aiming high, even when things aren’t going well.
As for the fans, well, increasing student attendance has been an obsession of his since the day he arrived on campus. He has gone out of his way to interact with them and entice them to come to games. It’s commendable that he will hand out his cell phone number at freshman orientation and speak at clubs across campus.
But there is only one way to guarantee a boost in attendance: winning.
I honestly think the fans should just protest and not go -@Ty_McClassy via X.
Hey, I’m not about to tell anyone what they should or should not do with their free time.
If you want to go to the Colorado/K-State game at 3 p.m. on Sunday, you should go. If you want to stay home or enjoy the weather, you should do that instead.
K-State needs to put a team on the court that can’t be ignored if it wants to play in front of big crowds. Fans have no obligation to show up, just because a coach asked them to do so.
That being said, I don’t think this season has gone badly enough for fans to organize a protest. Besides, how are you going to get this sweet hat if you don’t go?
If our men’s basketball team finishes at .500 or better, would we accept any postseason tournament that is offered? -@chad_epler via X.
Probably.
Jerome Tang didn’t hesitate to accept an invitation to the NIT last season. I doubt things would be different this time around if they earn a spot in the NIT or the new Vegas consolation tournament.
Tang has stated that he wants to retain as much of the current roster as possible heading into next season. Playing extra games together could help in that regard.
But K-State will need to win some games down the stretch for that to be an option. If the season ended today, the Wildcats would not be in the mix for any postseason tournament.
Why was Buddy Rich back in the lineup against UCF? And why was he benched for 13 games? Help it make sense! - Andrew B. via e-mail.
I doubt we ever learn all the details about what has gone on behind the scenes between Jerome Tang and Macaleab Rich.
But, for now, let’s just say Rich was stuck in the doghouse for 13 games and a combination of factors allowed him to get out of it and play against UCF.
Tang said that Rich has “grown up” over the past month. He also said that he was close to playing Rich against Arizona State and probably should have, in hindsight.
K-State’s frontcourt is in a bad spot without Coleman Hawkins, and Tang needs all the reinforcements he can get. For that reason, I expect Rich to stay in the rotation on a limited basis.
Why do we not recruit in-state talent? Kansas is a basketball state but we seem to not have any interest in what it produces -@CatsPush78776 via X.
To be fair, K-State has offered a scholarship to Great Bend athlete Ian Premer.
Odds are he will play football instead of basketball in college. But Tang has shown interest in recruiting him.
I’m not sure what to tell you otherwise. K-State hasn’t done much high school recruiting in recent years, period. Tang and his staff have done more than not recruit in-state talent. They didn’t sign a single recruit during the 2025 cycle. And they only added one last year in David Castillo.
There aren’t many blue-chip recruits in Kansas right now. Maybe that is also part of the reason.
But K-State has found success with “local” recruits in the past. Names like Will Spradling, Nino Williams and Dean Wade come to mind.
Trevor Hudgins, who led Northwest Missouri State to multiple Division II championships, is a Manhattan product that I bet Bruce Weber wished he recruited.
It wouldn’t hurt Tang (or Bill Self or Paul Mills) to recruit more locally.
How does our women’s basketball team need to finish in order to host NCAA Tournament games again this year? -@chad_epler via X.
The bracket projections for the women’s NCAA Tournament at ESPN and Her Hoops both have K-State clinging to a No. 4 seed at the moment, which means the Wildcats are still on track to host postseason games at Bramlage Coliseum.
So it stands to reason that K-State can stay on the 4 line by beating Iowa State on Sunday and then winning a game or two at the Big 12 Tournament.
That would give the Wildcats 27-plus wins, and that will likely be good enough.
But K-State has been trending in the wrong direction without Ayoka Lee in the lineup. It has lost four of its past 10 games and is coming off a 79-62 setback against Baylor. Lee is not expected to return to action until the NCAA Tournament, so the Wildcats will need to find a way to win more consistently without her.
K-State might also want to root against Baylor and West Virginia the rest of the way. Those two teams are threats to pass the Wildcats as the regular season comes to an end.
What does K-State baseball have to do to get ranked? -@RobHud3 via X.
Keep winning.
The Bat Cats are back on the radar after beating Arkansas, Michigan and TCU last week. But they dug themselves a hole by starting 1-4.
Next up is a neutral-field game against No. 2 LSU on Friday. If they win that game people may start forgetting about those early losses.
This story was originally published February 28, 2025 at 6:30 AM with the headline "K-State Q&A: Coleman Hawkins, Jerome Tang and another losing streak for the Wildcats."