K-State Q&A: PJ Haggerty, Nate Johnson, bowl games and Wildcat football analysis

Overlap season has begun.

For the past few months, college sports fans were only focused on football. In a few months, our attention will shift solely to basketball. Right now, though, we are interested in what is happening on both the gridiron and the hardwood.

That gives us plenty of fun topics to cover about the Kansas State Wildcats.

Let’s dive into your questions. Thanks, as always, for providing them.

How much does the Kansas State football team care about playing in a bowl game? Do you think that will help motivate the Wildcats as they play in their final three games? - Andrew B. via e-mail.

No offense to lower-tier bowl games, but nobody at K-State will be using the Liberty Bowl or the Independence Bowl as a rallying cry this month.

Chris Klieman has already guided the Wildcats to five bowl games in six seasons. K-State entered this year with much higher expectations than extending its bowl streak.

Several K-State football players were asked what will motivate them now that the Wildcats appear to be out of contention in the Big 12 championship race, and none of them said one word about achieving bowl eligibility.

“We’re going to play for pride,” K-State offensive lineman Andrew Leingang said. “I don’t think anyone is going to hang up their hat. We still have a lot of football in front of us. We are going to continue to play for the guy next to you and for the coaching staff. That is the K-State way.”

That being said, going 6-6 or 7-5 is better than finishing the regular season with a losing record. The Wildcats will undoubtedly try their best to win all three of their remaining games. With two of the worst teams in the Big 12 (Colorado and Oklahoma State) still on the schedule, it won’t be hard to obtain bowl eligibility.

The Wildcats will also happily accept any bowl bid that comes their way. Once again, more practice and an extra game beats the alternative. A lower-tier bowl could give Klieman an opportunity to get young players on the field and win with a developmental lineup. That could be fun to watch, for some.

Bowl projections give K-State a shot at playing in a bowl it has never played in before.

Still, no one is going to be dancing in the locker room just because K-State wins six games.

The football team started out the year ranked No. 17. Now it has a losing record. Where did it all go wrong? - Emily W. via e-mail.

Unfortunately, there isn’t one big thing I can point to as the lone culprit in Kansas State’s disappointing football season.

But I can point to several contributing factors.

• The early schedule was too ambitious. Maybe some teams can handle a rivalry game in Dublin, followed by North Dakota, Army and a Friday road game at Arizona without an open week, but K-State set itself up to fail. Not surprisingly, it started the year 1-3.
• Dylan Edwards has only been fully healthy for one game, and he rushed for 166 yards and a touchdown in that contest. The offense would be much better with him in the backfield.
• Losing Collin Klein to Texas A&M and Conor Riley to the Dallas Cowboys in consecutive seasons has also hurt the offense.
• K-State struck out in the transfer portal. Jaron Tibbs and Qua Moss have been the only impact guys.
• The Wildcats haven’t been clutch, as they have gone 1-4 in one-score games.

Do you think Collin Klein will be a head coach next season? -@garrett_b_1983 via X.

Yes. It would come as a major surprise if one of the hottest coordinators in the country is unable to land a head-coaching gig with so many openings across the sport.

Texas A&M is ranked No. 3, and its offense is a big reason why.

I imagine Klein will be in the running for Arkansas and Oklahoma State. He is probably at the top of Colorado State’s wish list, but I think he is aiming higher than that right now. Colorado could also be an option for him if Deion Sanders decides to call it quits after a frustrating season.

Will the men’s basketball team return to the NCAA Tournament this season? -@Markksu_11 via X.

I am going to need to see more than one game against a bad mid-major opponent before I provide a definitive answer to this question.

At the moment, I would lean “no.”

But the Wildcats did enough good things during their season-opening victory against UNC Greensboro that I am considering “yes” more than I was at the beginning of the week.

K-State has found two productive guards with PJ Haggerty and Nate Johnson. Abdi Bashir and Andrej Kostic are going to be streaky, which means they will be great when they make shots and bad when they don’t. But I still have major questions about the front court. Can Khamari McGriff and Elias Rapieque form a good enough tag-team in the paint to give K-State an inside presence against Big 12 teams?

The Wildcats check in at No. 83 nationally at Bart Tovik and No. 57 at Ken Pomeroy. They need to boost those numbers significantly to have a shot at the Big Dance. But I can see it happening.

I expect this team to play well enough to beat some of the best teams on its schedule and bad enough to lose to just about anyone. For now, it’s hard for me to predict much about a volatile team like that.

Ask me again at some point next month and I might have a better answer.

Jacob Pullen was the last Kansas State men’s basketball player to average more than 20 points in a season. Will PJ Haggerty be the next? -@ Mitch F. via e-mail.

Yes.

There is no hesitation when it comes to this topic. PJ Haggerty should absolutely average more than 20 points per game for the Wildcats this season. He averaged 21.2 points per game as a redshirt freshman at Tulsa. Then he averaged 21.7 points per game as a sophomore at Memphis.

He also scored 27 points in his K-State debut against UNC Greensboro.

If there is one thing you can absolutely count on from this team, it’s that Haggerty will be an alpha scorer. His play may not always please the eye, as he is constantly looking to draw fouls on his way to the basket. But you can’t argue with the results. He reached double figures in all but one game last season. And he went off for a season-high 42 points against WIchita State.

Which player, or players, impressed you the most in Kansas State’s first basketball game of the season? -@bfullingt1 via X.

Nate Johnson won me over.

I thought the Akron transfer was the best player on the floor. Not just because he finished with 22 points, nine rebounds and nine assists, but because he played the game the right way. He got after it on defense and he looked to get his teammates involved.

Scoring was not his main objective. K-State can win with a player like that in the starting lineup.

I doubt he plays that well every night. He made six 3-pointers, for crying out loud. Last season, he didn’t make more than three in a single game. So that was a career game for him.

Still, I liked what I saw from him.

What will Ivona Scekic bring to the Lady Wildcats? -@bfullingt1 via X.

The International basketball player from Slovenia should give K-State a nice depth piece to use in the front court after she joins the roster in December.

During the 2025 FIBA U18 Women’s EuroBasket tournament, Ivona Scekic saw action in seven games and averaged 5.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists. He best game came against Greece when she tallied 13 points and nine rebounds in 19 minutes of action.

It’s hard for me to see her coming in and making a huge impact right away. But she will help Jeff Mittie’s team in some ways.

With the addition of Ivona to the women’s team, is there a chance the men add a big man? What percent chance would you give it? -@LonRuger via X.

There is a chance that Jerome Tang will add an extra player to his roster in the middle of the season.

The Wildcats added Tyreek Smith as a transfer midway through last season. He never ended up playing in game for K-State, but Tang and his coaching staff sure tried to make it happen.

I would put the adds of another mid-year transfer joining the roster at about 15%. The Wildcats could use an extra big man, and there’s no harm in looking for one.

Kellis Robinett

The Wichita Eagle

Kellis Robinett covers Kansas State athletics for The Wichita Eagle and The Kansas City Star. A winner of more than a dozen national writing awards, he lives in Manhattan with his wife and four children.