Well, kids – I think we’re just about done here for 2025-26.
The #8 Iowa State Cyclones came into Bramlage today and absolutely thumped our flimsy excuse for a basketball team 95-61, posting the second-worst loss in Bramlage Coliseum history. Only a 41-point loss to Oklahoma in 1992 out-gassed this stinker.
K-State took a brief lead at 4-2 just a couple minutes into the tilt, but ISU rattled off a eleventy-billion-to-6* run from that point forward, and never trailed again. If “win probability” is a metric
you follow, you’ll see that the Cyclones’ win probability was above 90% before the first media timeout, hit 95% at around the second media timeout, and never dipped below 99.9% after the under-4 timeout in the first half. Iowa State had five in double-figures, including Josh Jefferson posting a 19pts, 8reb, 5ast afternoon, Tamin Lipsey going for 16pts, 5reb, 9ast, 4stl, and Milan Momcilovic connecting 5-9 from deep for an 18-point outing. K-State’s PJ Haggerty finished with 23pts, 9reb (on 21 shots), and David Castillo chipped in 11.
*approximately
That’s all the actual recap worthy of writing. Rather, I’m gonna kvetch for a minute now, and I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with it. Enjoy.
Sigh.
I kinda sorta know what basketball is.
This ain’t it.
This team looked hapless and incompetent for virtually the entire game. It didn’t matter if the Cyclones asked questions that were tough or easy – the Cats had no answer. None.
Incompetent.
The defense is a sad joke. Players can’t guard their man straight up, they have no idea how – or more importantly, when – to help off. And when they do, second rotation or recovery is poor at best. They’re small, they’re slow, and they’re soft. And then they don’t rebound.
Offensively, this team is marginally more competent than some of the better late-evening pickup teams across the way at Peters Rec Complex. It’s an offense that is predicated on being able to beat your man one-on-one, on pure athleticism alone. Period. That’s the offense. One-on-one, and hopefully a win in that battle yields a chance at the rim, or a kickout for a three in a half-assed two-man game. You can probably count the number of offensive possessions this afternoon with more than one effective pass without having to take your shoes off. Three-pointer basketball is already a crap game to watch, but when you’re bad at it but insist on playing it?
What are we even doing here?
This team has been taking on water for some time, and now appears to have culminated in a performance so putrid, so revolting, not even the sub-par Tom Asbury was able to equal it.
I don’t want to hear about injuries. Yeah, this team is missing three starters currently, and another mid-post that could potentially be effective as well. The reality is that this team wasn’t much better than average fully loaded. We saw that team. They lost to Bowling Green in Manhattan.
Now that K-State Great Jacob Pullen (re: @jpullz0 on X) has expressed his dissatisfaction with this steaming coil in the yard, it’s time to stop talking about games and plays, and start talking about our program.
This program is lost.
K-State is helmed by the consummate hype man, and not much more can be said about Tang at this point. Over the past two seasons, it has become glaringly obvious that Tang and his entire staff are either unskilled at actual X-and-O coaching, completely clueless recruiters, or – and this is probably the truth – a healthy scoop of both. We over-invested into someone that is currently failing miserably at their charge, with our only real evidence they would be successful being the lighting-in-a-bottle achievement of a team that ended up having three NBA players on the roster, two of which were developed and mature. I get it. There was a reasonable fear that we would have our Elite-Eight, award-winning coach bought away from us by someone with bigger pockets, and we’d have to start all over. Again, I understand. It doesn’t make the current situation any less lamentable, hindsight being 20/20.
This team looks like a massive underdog every time they take the floor right now. They play like it. They play like the entire gameplan is to throw haymaker after haymaker, hoping they land enough of them to knock out the other team. The problem is they don’t protect themselves at all to the jabs, body shots, and uppercuts. Just keep swinging. Bad shots, bad decisions, bad plays, hoping to connect. Do that against a bad boxer, and you’ll eventually overwhelm them. Do that against a good one, and they’re going to send you to the hospital. This team just doesn’t look like they believe they can be good. To their credit, they’re not often put in position to succeed.
Now, we’ve got Coach Tang out here making excuses about how NCAA and the environment of the NIL, transfer portal, and god-only-knows-what-else we’re going to blame it on “changing the rules on him”. Yeah, because one more year of eligibility from last-year’s Max Jones would have changed all of…this (gestures wildly). Funny – it sure looks like other programs have figured out how to navigate it.
We’ve also got back-to-back years of luxury toys we spent a lot of money on – first, Coleman Hawkins. Coleman Hawkins was an absolute dud. He had the makings of a legitimate 17-and-10 player, and performed at a pedestrian level most evenings. What I can’t commit to is who’s fault that is. Now, we’ve got PJ Haggerty. Second-team All-American in 2025, and currently top-5 scoring clip in NCAA this season. But…he’s a volume scorer, and does all his damage in the second half. Sure seems like games at this point are decided before he even shows up. What’s the point of “letting the game come to you” when, by the time it does, it’s already “gotten away from you”? Scoring 20 points in the second half of a contest you lose by 30 isn’t impressive. It’s rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. Again, what I can’t commit to is who’s fault that is. Tang and Co. seem to be able to get exceptional players in the door…they just can’t seem to do anything with them.
I mean, where are we going with this?
Who on this team are you building around? This has all the making of another team that is going to have a mass exodus yet again at the end of the season. We might keep Castillo, Taj Manning, or Elias Rapieque around for next season, and potentially Dorin Buca. Beyond that…who? Haggerty – if he wants another year of eligibility, is currently on his fourth squad in four years. CJ Jones, Nate Johnson, Khamari McGriff – all gone. Bashir and Kostic can find a better bag somewhere to chuck threes without rebuff. Feels like Mobi Ikegwuruka is on his way to a new program too.
Let’s say we keep all four of those names I mentioned. That’s another ten-to-eleven-player turnover for 2026-27. Can’t keep a squad together, and can’t get them to coalesce.
Jerome.
Buddy.
It’s not the rules. It might be you.
But what is there left to play for this season? We’re 10-12, 1-8 in conference play, and there’s legitimately two or three games we might win before the end of the season. I’m looking at home against Baylor, home against TCU, and home against Cincy. I’ll be shocked if we’re actually favoredin any game for the remainder of the year. And most of the team will be revamped after March. In other words, there ain’t a damn thing to play for at this point.
Except pride. Except the immediate future of the program. The reality is we’re married to Tang for at least a little while, so I’d really like him to start…
…I don’t know…
…actually coaching.
