Baylor assistant Jerome Tang named next Kansas State basketball coach
In what has been a banner season for first-year college head coaches, Kansas State followed that trend Monday by plucking one of its own.
Jerome Tang, who helped turn Baylor into a national power as an assistant on Scott Drew’s staff for the past 19 years, was selected as the Wildcats’ 25th men’s basketball coach, K-State athletics director Gene Taylor announced Monday afternoon.
Tang, 55, succeeds Bruce Weber, who resigned on March 10 following a third straight losing season. Tang agreed to a six-year contract that will pay him $2.1 million in 2022-23 with base salary increases of $100,000 each subsequent year, reaching $2.6 million in 2027-28.
The contract was approved by the K-State Athletics, Inc. Board of Directors and K-State president Richard Linton.
“I am beyond excited to be the next head basketball coach at Kansas State,” Tang, who will be formally introduced to the public during a Thursday news conference in Manhattan, said in a statement. “Having the opportunity to build on a program with a rich basketball history at a prestigious university is truly a blessing.
“We look forward to bringing an exciting style of basketball to K-State while helping our student-athletes succeed on the court and in life. My family and I can’t wait to get to Manhattan and form deep relationships with our students, former players, alumni and Wildcat fans everywhere. We look forward to making the Octagon of Doom the best home-court advantage in the country.”
Tang will take over a K-State program that has fallen on hard times since sharing the Big 12 regular-season championship with Texas Tech in 2019, a year after advancing to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight.
Why was Jerome Tang chosen to lead K-State basketball?
The K-State job is the first as a college head coach for Tang, a member of Drew’s original Baylor staff since 2003. He was promoted to associate head coach in 2017 and has helped mold a Bears program rocked by a scandal under the previous regime into a national power.
“As we conducted a national search to find our next head coach, we wanted to identify an individual who can lead our program to consistently high levels while maintaining the integrity that our program is known for,” Taylor said. “When we first met with Jerome, he was very impressive, and that continued throughout the duration of our search.”
Baylor finally reached the summit in 2021, winning the Big 12 regular-season title and then the school’s first-ever national championship. This year the Bears shared the conference title with Kansas and were the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament’s East Regional, but were bounced in the second round in overtime by North Carolina on Saturday to finish at 27-7.
While his lack of college head coaching experience might concern some, the timing could not have been better for Tang. This season alone, first-time head coach Tommy Floyd led Arizona to an NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed and on Sunday into the Sweet 16, while Hubert Davis’ North Carolina earned an overtime victory over Baylor.
Texas Tech’s Mark Adams, who was promoted from associate head coach to the top job this year, has the Red Raiders in the Sweet 16 as well.
“From a detailed recruiting plan and familiarity with our league, his knack for building and maintaining tremendous relationships with everyone he comes in contact with, to offensive and defensive philosophies, he has what it takes to be a successful leader,” Taylor said of Tang. “His vision for our program is something that all K-Staters will be excited about and one that helped build a Baylor program from the ground up, culminating with a national championship.
“With him at the helm, I know that great days are ahead for K-State basketball.”
Prior to signing on with Drew at Baylor, Tang was head basketball coach and athletic director at Heritage Christian Academy near Houston for 10 years, leading the Eagles to four state championships.
Tang will be the first Black men’s head basketball coach in school history and just the fourth minority men’s head coach in school history, following former baseball coach Dave Baker (1978-83), former football coach Ron Prince (2006-08) and current women’s tennis coach Jordan Smith (2018-present).
Tang also received a strong endorsement from Drew, his boss for the past 19 seasons.
“First and foremost, coach Tang has had opportunities in the past,” Drew said during an NCAA Tournament news conference last Wednesday. “And people see that he does a great job and would be a great head coach.
“And the good thing is he can be selective. He's never just taken something for money or because he wants to be a head coach. When he feels called to go somewhere, he's going to go. And definitely it'll be exciting for us.”
The first order of business for Tang, in addition to assembling his own staff, will be addressing K-State’s current roster. Sophomore guard Nijel Pack, a first-team Big 12 all-conference selection, led the Wildcats in scoring with 17.4 points per game while junior transfer Markquis Nowell — an honorable mention pick and member of the league’s all-defensive team — averaged 12.4 points and a team-high 5.0 assists.
Tang replaces Weber, whose 10-year record at K-State was 184-147 and included a pair of shared Big 12 titles in 2013 and 2019. The Wildcats reached the NCAA Tournament five times in his first seven years, but after back-to-back 25-win seasons slipped to 11-21 and last place in the Big 12 in 2019-20, then went 9-20 the following year.
Hopes were higher this year, especially when the Wildcats entered the second half of February with a 14-11 record and in fifth place in the league. But things went south quickly from that point on as they dropped their last six games, leading Weber to step down before being fired.