Jerome Tang thinks Kansas State is getting unfair criticism because of NIL spending
It was hard to tell what Coleman Hawkins was most upset about after the Kansas State men’s basketball team suffered a heartbreaking 73-70 overtime loss against Drake on Tuesday at T-Mobile Center.
Was he down in the dumps because the Wildcats fell to 6-4 and missed out on a golden opportunity for a signature victory against an undefeated opponent? Or was he hanging his head because of all the nasty messages he read on his phone on his way out of the arena?
Either way, he was not happy. He made that abundantly clear as he shared his emotions with brutal honesty during a postgame news conference.
“I feel like it’s us versus everybody,” Hawkins said after scoring 16 points for the Wildcats. “I can’t go on my phone without people wishing the worst for me. Not just for me, but for our team. And it devastates me. I just went on my phone and saw someone say, ‘I hope you break your leg.’ That’s the kind of stuff that our team has been dealing with all year.
“It affects me so much, because I don’t wish that upon my worst enemy. We go out, we practice every day, we play hard. We’re doing the best we can. My message (to my teammates) would be it’s us versus everybody. We can control what we can control, and we’ll just have to tune out and lock in the rest of the way.”
It has been a difficult season for Hawkins.
The Illinois transfer arrived at K-State with ginormous expectations after the Wildcats arranged for him to earn $2 million worth of NIL money in exchange for spending one season in Manhattan. He is among the highest-paid players in all of college basketball.
His K-State stats (8.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists) are about the same as the numbers that he posted last season for the Illini (12.1 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists), but many have viewed him as a disappointment because his team is off to a dreadful start and he isn’t producing at a $2 million level.
Of course, he isn’t the only new K-State basketball player that head coach Jerome Tang brought to town with the promise of NIL riches.
Tang and the Wildcats constructed their current roster with a large NIL budget. They hoped to win a national championship with those resources. But they aren’t winning like big spenders. That has clearly put extra pressure on this team, and everyone is struggling to deal with it.
That much was impossible to ignore after a Drake team that featured a group of fundamentally sound players — who aren’t making millions in NIL cash — beat K-State to improve to 10-0. Bennett Stirtz, a Division II transfer who grew up in Liberty, grinned ear to ear after he lifted the Bulldogs to an overtime victory by making the first buzzer-beater of his life.
This felt like the Yankees vs. the Marlins ... only the low-budget team won.
It’s starting to feel like the classic Notorious B.I.G. song “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems” would make a good theme song for K-State basketball as it falls further and further away from NCAA Tournament contention.
Tang doesn’t think that is fair.
“I have got a great group of dudes there and they’re working really, really hard,” Tang said. “They’re trying to put into just a few months what some of the teams have multiple years to do. You see a lot of this, but for any fans or any people who are reaching out to say negative things to these guys, man, shame on you. Shame on you.”
Still, money has been such a distraction for this team that Tang played the ESPN documentary “Broke” on the drive to Kansas City this week. The first few times he watched the film, he mostly noticed how many professional athletes wasted their pro salaries. This time, though, he paid closer attention to how the athletes in the movie struggled to perform while dealing with the pressure of getting paid.
“What stuck out was the pressure that they face when they have money,” Tang said, “because they feel like they’ve got to try and deliver something now because they’re being paid. These young guys, they’re feeling that pressure. For so-called fans to add on top of that, that’s a crime and that’s just terrible. Those aren’t real K-State fans. They’re definitely not our people and with us and what we are about.”
Tang went on to say that he thinks it is ridiculous that college basketball fans criticize players when they make a mistake, just because they are receiving NIL money.
He said he recently watched a game in which the TV commentator said a certain player was getting paid too much money to miss a certain shot. Tang was stunned by that remark, because he doesn’t hear the same during NBA games.
“I watch NBA games, and they never say that about NBA players who make way more money than that,” Tang said. “He spoke what everybody’s thinking, but it’s the wrong thinking.”
Few can argue with that statement. K-State players shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than their NBA counterparts. But no one will shed tears for the Wildcats as they deal with these distractions. Tang could have constructed this roster without record NIL money. Or he could have targeted different players who were better suited to handle this environment.
Former K-State guard Nijel Pack transferred to Miami on a very public NIL deal in 2022 that was worth $800,000, an unheard of sum at the time, and he helped the Hurricanes reach the Final Four.
This isn’t a distraction for everyone.
Like it or not, the stigma that is associated with major NIL money will follow this team all season. It hasn’t handled it well thus far.