‘We still have a chance’: Why David N’Guessan gives K-State hope at Big 12 Tournament
Few, if any, college basketball players are more valuable to their team than David N’Guessan.
The senior forward has turned into a scoring machine for Kansas State over the past month. His recent game logs read like an All-Big 12 player. A few highlights: 22 points at Arizona State, 20 points against Kansas, a double-double at Cincinnati, 19 points against Iowa State ... it goes on and on.
N’Guessan has become “Mr. Consistent” for the Wildcats. He has scored at least 16 points in seven of his past 10 games and has averaged 15.7 points and 7.7 rebounds over that time.
The Netherlands native is on such a hot streak that K-State coach Jerome Tang is running out of new ways to compliment him.
“I don’t know that I have any other adjectives,” Tang said, “to describe just what he’s meant to us.”
N’Guessan chose a good time to play his best basketball. He is ending his college basketball career on a personal high note, even though he is on a mediocre team.
Things have changed for him since he first arrived at K-State three years ago as a transfer from Virginia Tech. He was a role player for Tang’s first team, which won 26 games and reached the Elite Eight. He has steadily grown into a star player and a leader for the Wildcats. Now he is the alpha male at Bramlage Coliseum.
That may not mean much to some, considering that the Wildcats only won 19 games last season and enter the Big 12 Tournament with a record of 15-16 this season. But it’s hard to blame N’Guessan for the program’s downturn.
He is playing at a high level.
“He is one of the very few guys in the country, in my opinion, that understands his role and excels at it to the best of his ability,” K-State guard Dug McDaniel said. “It’s because he works hard every day in the gym. Everything he’s doing is not a surprise to me. His consistency and his leadership are going to help us finish strong.”
K-State fans showed their appreciation for N’Guessan when he bid farewell to the Octagon of Doom after a home loss to Iowa State on Saturday.
He didn’t begin his college basketball career in Manhattan, but he spent three years in the community even though he had other options. Some might say he bleeds purple.
That is one of the reasons why he isn’t ready to give up on this season. The Wildcats begin Big 12 Tournament action at 6 p.m. on Tuesday against Arizona State. They will need to win that game (and four more) to earn a berth into March Madness.
A deep run in Kansas City seems unlikely, but the Wildcats did win six consecutive conference games earlier this season and they have a red-hot forward in the post.
N’Guessan isn’t giving up hope.
“When you have games remaining that means there is life,” N’Guessan said. “We still have a chance. Obviously, the season didn’t go the way we wanted. I never imagined losing my last home game. But there’s another game and we’re going to go all out to get that one. Then we will go from there.”
This story was originally published March 10, 2025 at 1:45 PM with the headline "‘We still have a chance’: Why David N’Guessan gives K-State hope at Big 12 Tournament."