Kansas State's run puts spotlight on Jerome Tang's magnetic personality
Kansas State is one win away from the Final Four, something few saw coming at the beginning of the 2022-23 college basketball season. No, the Wildcats are not exactly a Cinderella team like their opponent Florida Atlantic in Saturday's Elite Eight game (6:09 p.m. ET), having earned a No. 3 seed in this year's tournament thanks to a 26-9 regular season record. But their presence here is nonetheless a surprise.
Kansas State was picked to finish last in the Big 12 before the season began, and all the Wildcats have done throughout longtime Baylor assistant Jerome Tang's first year as head coach is defy expectations from just about everyone except, well, Tang himself.
"I'm not coming here to rebuild [this program]. I came to elevate, and it won't take long," Tang said at his introductory news conference last March.
How does one elevate a program coming off three straight losing seasons? For Tang, it meant installing a culture of what the devoutly religious man calls "crazy faith."
"When you love people, it's amazing what you can accomplish," Tang told TBS after Kansas State's thrilling overtime victory over Michigan State in the Sweet 16 on Thursday.
One way in which Tang has fostered that love within his program has gone viral recently — his team's pregame routine of listening, clapping and dancing in sync to the rap song "Low Down" by Lil Baby.
After the Wildcats' win Thursday, the song blared again and Tang celebrated with his players. Tang then showed up late to the postgame news conference thanks to the celebration and immediately launched into a speech about the importance of faith on his team.
That bond among Kansas State players was the most evident Thursday when Markquis Nowell, after debating with Tang which play to run, saw his teammate Keyontae Johnson cut toward the hoop and threw a perfect lob pass to cap off a historic night in Madison Square Garden for the New York native point guard.
Afterward, Tang joked that his shouting with Nowell was a closely guarded piece of strategy before admitting that the argument was real.
Those scenes from the middle of Manhattan, N.Y., have put Tang's personality on full display for a wide audience, even though those back home in Manhattan, Kansas have witnessed that all season.
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