Marcus Foster and Kansas State are back in the NCAA Tournament — just not together

Marcus Foster knew it was coming, but that didn’t ease the pain. When Kansas State basketball coach Bruce Weber sent him a long text message informing Foster he had been kicked off the team after his sophomore season in March 2014, he felt lost and hurt.

In time, those feelings changed.

“I am glad it worked out this way,” Foster, now a junior guard at Creighton, said Thursday. “I wouldn’t change anything that happened my sophomore year at K-State. I wouldn’t be the player or the person I am now if I didn’t have that experience.”

Foster has changed in many ways since that day.

He is older, wiser and more muscular. He is also now averaging 18.3 points for the No. 6-seed Bluejays (25-9).

“I have just matured,” Foster said. “I think about life differently. College is a time when you want to have fun and my sophomore year I was having way too much fun. I wasn’t focused on basketball. Going through that and the experience of how my game didn’t pan out was (good).

“I have figured out how to balance things now. I have learned how to have an outside life without forgetting about why I’m in college, to play basketball.”

Foster was a distracted person during his final season at K-State. Though he led the Wildcats in scoring in back-to-back seasons, he was not a leader. The coaching staff viewed him as a troublemaker that had a negative impact on the locker room near the end of his sophomore year.

Weber benched him and suspended him. He also made Foster off-limits to the media when a season that began with high hopes and Foster proclaiming the Cats had “Final Four talent” ended with 15 victories.

“We just weren’t in it for each other,” Foster said. “I think we all had our individual mindsets of what we wanted to do and what we wanted to accomplish. The talent was definitely there on that team. I just didn’t think we brought it together as a team.”

A family atmosphere is what he enjoys most about Creighton. He built a strong relationship with his teammates while sitting out a year under NCAA transfer rules.

“Guys really love each other and you see it on the court,” Foster said. “We’re playing hard not just for ourselves, but for our teammates and our coaching staffs.”

Foster has blossomed as a scorer, most recently hitting a game-winner over at Madison Square Garden in the semifinals of the Big East Tournament. There’s a chance he will turn pro after this season, but he wants to talk over his options with his family before making a decision.

He still follows K-State and talks regularly with Wesley Iwundu, a member of his original recruiting class.

Iwundu is the only player from that group still at K-State. Dismissals and transfers were common following K-State’s nosedive two seasons ago. A rebuilding project followed.

Now, K-State and Foster are back in the NCAA Tournament at the same time, just not together.

Foster says he will be rooting for K-State to advance. He wants to see Iwundu shine, and he holds no animosity toward Weber.

“I have no problem with him,” Foster said. “He had a job to do and I also had a job to do. I wasn’t doing my job. The best thing for him to do was to get rid of the situation we had over there. There are no hard feelings. Everything worked out for the best.”

Altman could face former team — This NCAA Tournament could be a trip down memory lane for Oregon coach Dana Altman.

If No. 3 Oregon defeats No. 14 Iona on Friday, the Ducks may face Creighton in the second round. Altman coached the Bluejays for 16 seasons. Also in the Sacremento sub-regional is K-State, the place he coached before moving to Omaha, though the Wildcats are in a different regional.

Altman spent seven seasons at K-State, four as the head coach. He went 68-54, reaching a pair of NCAA Tournaments and twice playing in the NIT.

“I’m getting old,” Altman joked after adding up his time spent at both schools.

Altman has done well with Oregon, going 183-69 in seven seasons, winning at least 21 games each season and reaching the NCAA Tournament in five consecutive years.

“We’ve got Iona tomorrow and that’s what we’re pretty much focused on,” Altman said. “But those two places were great to my family and myself and we really enjoyed our time there.”

This story was originally published March 16, 2017 at 7:27 PM with the headline "Marcus Foster and Kansas State are back in the NCAA Tournament — just not together."