Kansas State Basketball: The Octagon of Gloom

I’m not a “fire them all” type of writer or sports fan. I have family in the college coaching profession, and they’ve been fired…multiple times, it’s never fun. In fact, K-State fired my uncle (along with everyone else on the Stan Parrish staff) in 1988, ending their stay in Manhattan. Hell, the one thing a decade of coaching at the high school level taught me is that some outcomes are outside of your control when dealing with players without fully formed brains. The difference between a 1-point win and a 1-point loss, in terms of overall play, is negligible. I am not without empathy for Coach Tang, his assistants, and the support staff around them, but sometimes a change is needed. I don’t think that change is going to come mid-season. I’m not even sure that change comes at the end of this season, but this isn’t working. However much donors paid for this roster would be much better spent on buying out the head coach’s contract. I’ve seen enough.

My biggest takeaway from the Bowling Green embarrassment last night is that y’all deserve better as fans.

That was the worst basketball I’ve had the displeasure of watching this season. I’ve seen more energy and hustle in the final game of an old man open gym run. K-State’s entire offense revolved around one player pounding the ball into the court while four other guys stood around and watched. It was truly a highway construction crew offense. I hate this style of basketball with an undying passion; it goes against every tenant of basketball I believe in. This isn’t a team; it’s a loose collection of basketball mercenaries looking for a paycheck, and that’s exactly how they play.

The defense was so uninspired that Coach Tang broke out a garbage 1-3-1 zone to try to tempt Bowling Green into taking the bad shots his defense couldn’t force them into. What’s wild is Bowling Green fell into the trap, started launching 3’s, and the home team still couldn’t mount a comeback! The other team cooperated, and Kansas State still couldn’t get close enough to put pressure on them down the stretch. Once the Falcons realized no one was actually playing defense in the 1-3-1, the first-half layup line and three-point shooting gallery resumed. On the odd possession where the Bowling Green offense struggled to find a shot, Kansas State employed an auto-foul defense any time the shot clock ticked under five seconds. These weren’t try-hard, hustle fouls. They weren’t playing physical basketball; they were playing lazy, undisciplined basketball.

This team made Sam Towns look like Karl-Anthony Towns. This is Sam’s sixth season of college basketball. He must have saved his best for the Wildcats; his previous career high of sixteen points occurred this season in an 87-91 loss to Davidson. He put up 27 points on 14 shots like it was something he does on a regular basis. It was an analytic dream performance with Towns hitting six layups, three three-pointers, and going a perfect 6-6 from the line. I guarantee Sam will be talking about the time he went into The Octagon of Doom and gutted the home team for the rest of his life. Shout out to the K-State defense for creating core memories, I guess. That’s about all they were good for other than taking the ball out of the net.

I don’t even want to talk about that game anymore, if I’m being honest.

Even the recap above reminds me that I can’t get back the time I wasted watching that game. I couldn’t fall asleep last night because every time I closed my eyes, all I could hear was a Kansas State guard pounding the ball into the court like a busted metronome. I’m going to watch Purdue eviscerate Rutgers tonight in an attempt to get the bad basketball taste out of my mouth. Not only is this team bad, but it’s also bad in the most boring, selfish way possible. I didn’t see anyone out there laying it on the line for EMAW last night, and why should they, the vast majority of these players weren’t here last season and won’t be here next season. They have no connection to the fans or the history of the program. They don’t have an obligation to each other or the coaching staff.

Last night I saw a team show up and go through the motions against a 7 deep Bowling Green squad, with the exception of David Castillo. Coach Tang said it was his worst loss as the coach of Kansas State, but it didn’t feel that way to me, and that’s a huge problem. That game wasn’t any worse than the debacle against Wichita State last season. I didn’t see any less effort last night than I did in their 54-66 home loss to a 13-win Arizona State team. I saw a continuation of the same basketball team that got paid a ton of money to win 16 games last season. The players are better this season, but the team is so poorly constructed and coached, it doesn’t matter.

I feel bad for Kansas State. It looked like y’all had your coach for the next decade wrapped up after his magical first season. I thought the Wildcats and the Octagon of Doom would be a fixture of Big 12 basketball. You had to make the move to extend Tang, but you didn’t realize he had no idea how to build to team or run a sustainable program. That team looks like a fluke that had very little to do with Coach Tang and everything to do with Marquise Nowell and Keyontae Johnson being great basketball players who required very little coaching. This staff has desperately tried to find replacements for Nowell and Johnson in the portal instead of investing in their own player development and recruiting.

At the end of the day, Coach Tang is getting paid a little north of 3 million dollars for the product he put on the court last night. That’s what he’s turned this team into. It’s not a college basketball team, that requires the players to have a connection to the university beyond wearing a jersey for five months and cashing a few lucrative paychecks.

I’m sorry y’all, I don’t know what else to say. I tried to buy into this team, but I always feared this would be the outcome. I didn’t see anything last night to indicate that my fear was misplaced.

Welcome to the Octagon of Gloom, good seats are available but rarely occupied.