K-State Wildcats Q&A: Football predictions, basketball recruiting, golf and more
It’s time for another K-State Q&A.
Thanks, as always, for providing so many great questions. Let’s dive right in.
It’s hard for me to keep track of all the comings and goings on the Kansas State men’s basketball roster. Can you break down all the moves for us? - Jeff M. via e-mail.
Hey, I hear you. I list a K-State basketball tracker at the bottom of every story that involves a new roster move for that very reason.
Six K-State basketball players decided to transfer to new schools.
Some of them have already found new homes. Brendan Hausen is heading to Iowa, Ugonna Onyenso is off to Virginia, Baye Fall is going to Rutgers, Dug McDaniel has landed at Memphis and it seems like CJ Jones is locked in on DePaul.
Macaleab Rich has not announced his new school yet.
Jerome Tang has signed three incoming transfers.
Abdi Bashir is a great shooter from Monmouth. Khamari McGriff is a solid forward from UNCW. And Nate Johnson was the MAC Player of the Year last season at Akron.
High school senior Exavier Wilson will be on campus this summer. He will be joined by international recruit Andrej Kostic out of Serbia.
The only returning players on the K-State roster are David Castillo, Mobi Ikegwuruka and Taj Manning.
But it’s worth mentioning that Max Jones and Tyreek Smith are both seeking waivers from the NCAA to gain an extra year of eligibility next season. So there could be two more, but I have my doubts both waivers get approved.
Either way, Jerome Tang was hoping to retain more players than that.
That leaves him with between three and five remaining scholarships to use for next season.
Should we expect more EuroLeague kids this year? And do you expect them be coached/instructed to avoid all Social Media to avoid some the criticism that may come their way? -@ChadFullington via X.
Keep an eye on German hooper Elias Rapieque. He might be the next player to commit to K-State.
The Wildcats have been linked to him for a while now, and the expectation is that he will sign with the Wildcats as soon as his season comes to an end and all the proper paperwork is completed.
It’s possible K-State could bring in three foreign players after the successful run that David N’Guessan (of The Netherlands) had in Manhattan. But two seems more likely than three.
The rest of the roster will probably come from the transfer portal.
I’m not sure if the foreign players need to worry about social media. Coleman Hawkins was a perfect storm last season. He had the richest NIL deal in all of college basketball, he was a well known player from Illinois and he didn’t mind being the villain at times.
Maybe I’m just being naive here, but I don’t see Kostic being the same kind of lightning rod that Hawkins was in a K-State basketball uniform ... even though he will be making more money.
Tell me about Bill Peterson. Is he a good or not so good hire for Jerome Tang’s coaching staff? -@smitty4ksu via X.
It’s impossible to say without having access to a DeLorean, but he seems like a good addition to the Wildcats.
Peterson was with Tang at Baylor when the Bears won a national championship. He also has nearly 50 years of coaching experience and he has worked with big-name players in the NBA.
I don’t mind bringing him on as an advisor. Tang could probably benefit from having a veteran coach on the sideline.
K-State won 26 games and reached the Elite Eight when it had a similar assistant (Kevin Sutton) in the building. Why not try to recreate that and then make an external hire to replace Ulric Maligi?
Which is the bigger commitments to K State this week, JB Nelson (Penn State) and Terrence Enos Jr. (Pittsburgh) for football or Serbian club star Andrej Kostić for basketball? -@bfullingt1 via X.
I am tempted to say Nelson, because he is a massive human being. He helped Penn State reach the College Football Playoff last year as an offensive lineman. He could make a big impact for the Wildcats next season.
Still, Kostic feels like the right answer.
He is the ultimate wild card. I don’t know what to expect from him in the Big 12. He could be the conference’s Newcomer of the Year. He could be a total bust. But he has a high ceiling and he could be a difference-maker at Bramlage Coliseum.
What do we expect the offensive play calling to look like? -@kriley111 via X.
Kansas State football fans have asked this question ahead of just about every new season under Chris Klieman.
The Wildcats have not enjoyed continuity at offensive coordinator since Klieman coached his first game at Bill Snyder Family Stadium in 2019, with Courtney Messingham, Collin Klein, Conor Riley, and now Matt Wells all calling plays.
Things changed under all of those coordinators, but the offense never looked drastically different. We have never seen a spread attack or the triple option. The variations have been much more subtle than that.
I expect another small change next season with Wells in charge of the offense.
But I doubt he runs the ball as much as Riley did last season. DJ Giddens (205 carries for 1,343 yards), Avery Johnson (113 carries for 605 yards) and Dylan Edwards (74 carries for 546 yards) combined to touch the ball nearly 400 times on designed runs last season. There were times when it felt like the offensive game plan was to give the ball to Giddens and get out of his way.
The next best option was to throw the ball to a tight end in the red zone.
Wells should do more to spread the ball around, particularly in the short passing game. Jayce Brown, Jerand Bradley and Jarob Tibbs all look like weapons at wide receiver.
I expect K-State to flash more of an up-tempo and versatile look next season. Wells has said you have to run to win games in the fourth quarter. The Wildcats won’t ignore that part of their offense, especially with someone like Edwards in the backfield. But they should be more balanced. That is to be expected now that an offensive line coach is no longer at coordinator.
When is Kansas State going to get an alternate football jersey? -@coachjeromecf via X.
Believe it or not, I think we see the Wildcats wear a true alternate uniform that does more than simply trade silver pants/helmets for white pants/helmets in the next few years.
The Wildcats finally won a game without their traditional threads against Rutgers at the Rate Bowl. Now that the curse of the alternate uniforms has been lifted there is no reason for Klieman and his coaching staff to get superstitious.
Personally, I would love to see K-State try an all-purple uniform or experiment with anthracite (dark gray). All whites on the road is never a bad look, either. Athletic director Gene Taylor loves to poke fun at Iowa State for wearing black uniforms, so I don’t think we will ever see those. Lavender has been deemed a men’s basketball color, so I’m not expecting that either.
But there is no reason for the Wildcats to keep wearing their traditional unis all the time.
Klieman has said it takes a long time to get new uniforms delivered from Nike, though. So it might not be something we see immediately.
Here’s to hoping they incorporate something new over the next few seasons.
Has K-State become a golf school? -Andrew B. via e-mail.
I wouldn’t go that far.
The K-State football team has gone 36-17 over the past four seasons with four bowl appearances and one Big 12 championship. This season, hopes are high that the Wildcats can push for a spot in the College Football Playoff in 2025 with Avery Johnson back at quarterback.
Kansas State University is a football school.
But it has been a good year for K-State golf. Carla Bernat won a prestigious tournament at Augusta National. And both the men’s and women’s team earned a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
The Wildcats have been putting in some impressive work at Colbert Hills.
What’s next on K-State’s Athletic Master Plan? -@RobHud3 via X.
I’m not expecting K-State to pursue any major facility enhancements for quite a while.
The Wildcats will be much better off sharing revenue with student-athletes than they will be building a new locker room or training complex.
What would be the perfect AI prompt to get best answer for fixing college sports? -@the_funky_andy via X.
Well, I asked AI how it would fix college sports and here’s how Skynet responded ...
- Unionize athletes so they can collectively bargain for better NIL rules and better treatment
- Ensure academic integrity
- Provide healthcare and injury protections for student-athletes
- Replace the NCAA with a new governing body
- Cap spending on coach salaries
Sadly, I’m not sure what academic integrity has to do with college sports anymore. But the rest makes sense.
College sports is in a weird space right now. Something has to be done to reduce the number of transfers each offseason. It would also be nice for conferences to agree on a salary cap for each sport. In an ideal world, we would go back to regional leagues that don’t stretch from one coast to the other.
My best solution would be to follow the MLS model when it comes to spending. I like it, because every team is allowed to break the bank on two or three “designated” players while everyone else on the roster must conform to a salary.
If money was equal for most players, regardless of school affiliation, there wouldn’t be as much reason to constantly transfer. Maybe student-athletes would pick teams for other reasons than money and stay more than a year.
This story was originally published May 2, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "K-State Wildcats Q&A: Football predictions, basketball recruiting, golf and more."