Why Jerome Tang thought about adding walk-ons for Kansas State’s game at TCU
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Tang considered adding a walk-on when he feared K-State might have only five players.
- K-State had eight available players Saturday; Haggerty scored 30 while ill.
- Wildcats led much of the game but lost 84-82, dropping to 10-13 (1-9 Big 12).
Jerome Tang was understandably disappointed after Kansas State let a conference game slip away on Saturday at Schollmaier Arena. He was frustrated that the Wildcats were unable to protect an early lead and lost 84-82. And he was upset that his team remained in last place of the Big 12 standings.
But he wasn’t angry about the way his team played.
If anything, he was proud of the way K-State players fought under bizarre circumstances.
“They gave everything they had,” Tang said.
Tang was proud of his active roster, because the Wildcats were severely limited for this game. Not only were they without Mobi Ikegwuruka, Elias Rapieque and Abdi Bashir, but Andrej Kostic was unable to play with an injury to his right ankle. On top of that, Khamari McGriff, PJ Haggerty and Dorin Buca were all battling the flu.
At one point during the week, Tang said he worried that the Wildcats may not have enough healthy players to make the road trip.
“We actually thought we would only have five guys for this game,” Tang said. “That was as of yesterday. So I’m proud of our guys. I’m not proud of the results. Nobody wants to lose, but for what these guys have been going through, I’m very, very proud of them. We’re going to keep fighting, and we’re going to figure this out.”
K-State’s roster situation looked so bleak for a moment that Tang said he thought about adding walk-ons to the team as an emergency measure.
“If we were going to be down to five guys, there was a lot of thinking about how can we do this?” Tang said. “What can we do? We talked about adding a walk-on, just so you had a dude on the bench.”
That was not necessary.
K-State ended up with eight able-bodied players Saturday. But only two of those eight players felt well enough to attend shootaround on Friday night. Everyone else was hurt or sick.
McGriff returned from a four-game absence and gave the Wildcats a boost in the frontcourt. Haggerty skipped warm-ups and then scored 30 points while experiencing flu-like symptoms. And Buca gave K-State four important minutes off the bench.
Seldom-used Marcus Johnson took advantage of the minutes he was thrust into, as he scored a surprising 15 points. David Castillo and Nate Johnson also stepped up as complementary scorers for Haggerty.
That combination allowed K-State to race to an 18-point lead in the first half. The Wildcats held an advantage for 39 minutes and 31 seconds of game action on Saturday. The Horned Frogs didn’t pull ahead for the first time until 6.7 seconds were left on the clock.
This could have gone down as a heroic win for the shorthanded Wildcats, but it wasn’t to be.
The Wildcats (10-13, 1-9 Big 12) found a new and agonizing way to lose. Their disappointing season continues.
Still, Tang walked away from this game with reason to hope his team is capable of more.
“They did everything we asked them to do to be able to play,” Tang said. “That’s all we can do. I’ve been proud of the resilience of this group with everything that’s been thrown at them, and I know that we’re going to keep moving forward and getting better.”