Kansas State coach Jerome Tang took two calculated risks this transfer portal season. First, Tang saved most of his NIL budget for late in the cycle because his belief was that the best players available would be the ones testing the NBA Draft waters and thus delaying their decisions.
That decision paid off in late May and early June when Tang got commitments from former Samford big man Achor Achor and former Kentucky 7-footer Ugonna Onyenso. At that point, all Tang felt like he needed was a wing. But the best players in the portal at that position who had declared elected to keep their names in that draft. So Tang took another risk. Even though it looked like his starting frontcourt was set with Achor and Onyenso, Tang decided to pursue former Illinois big man Coleman Hawkins, who he sees as someone who can play multiple positions.
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While Tang will not declare who the starters will be, he told The Athletic on Friday, after Hawkins announced his commitment, that the Wildcats will play lineups with Onyenso, Achor and Hawkins, which is definitely unorthodox when you consider all three started at center for their respective teams last season.
“Did you ever see our 2012 team at Baylor?” asked Tang, an assistant to Scott Drew for 19 seasons in Waco. “That’s what this team’s roster buildup looks like.”
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That team started 6-9, 6-7 and 6-11 players up front and made the Elite Eight. Tang not only has Hawkins, Achor and Onyenso, he also returns 6-foot-9 power forward David N’Guessan, who has started 39 games at Kansas State. Earlier in the transfer window, he also landed 6-11 center Baye Fall from Arkansas, where Fall saw limited action in his first season.
Hawkins, who made 59 3s last season and averaged 2.7 assists while sometimes serving as the initiator of Illinois’ offense, is the newcomer who makes these super-tall lineups possible.
“That’s the plan is that he can play the three and play quite a bit of time there,” Tang said, noting Hawkins could also see time at the four and five. “Somebody’s gonna have to figure out which one of those guys they’re going to guard with who, and then we’re going to be able to pick on mismatches.”
The Illini offense was at its best last season when Hawkins moved to the four and played alongside Dain Dainja. The Illini scored a monstrous 141.4 points per 100 possessions with those two on the floor together, per CBB Analytics.
Illinois operated like the best offense in the country last season whenever Hawkins was on the floor, but surprisingly his on-off defensive numbers were not good. Tang blames a balky knee that had Hawkins operating at around 70 percent most of the season. Hawkins has a reputation as a good defender, able to switch across multiple positions, and his on-off numbers backed that up in 2021-22 and ’22-23. He also has quick hands and has posted good steals totals for a big man.
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The interchangeability of K-State’s bigs is something Tang is banking on will be a strength. The Wildcats almost look like an old-school Syracuse roster. Jim Boeheim always prioritized length for his zone, and Scott Drew followed a similar model for years at Baylor. The aforementioned 2011-12 Bears played zone on 46.2 percent of their defensive possessions, per Synergy. Tang plans to use some zone but says the Wildcats will primarily be a man-to-man team.
Tang coached the defense at Baylor and his first two teams at K-State have thrived on that end, finishing 27th and 25th in adjusted defense at KenPom. Where the Cats struggled last year was on the offensive end, turning the ball over too often and shooting only 31.8 percent from 3.
Addressing the shooting was a priority, as well as upgrading the talent and landing “competitive guys who had higher basketball IQs.” Tang added three wings in the portal — Brendan Hausen (from Villanova), Max Jones (from Cal State Fullerton) and CJ Jones (from Illinois-Chicago) — who all shot above 38 percent from 3 last season.
K-State spent early in the portal cycle to address its need for shot creators, landing former Michigan point guard Dug McDaniel, who averaged 16.3 points and 4.7 assists last season. It also prioritized four-star point guard David Castillo in the early recruiting cycle and got a commitment from him last April. That set Tang’s 2024-25 perimeter early in the portal season. In addition to the NBA Draft decision factor, he waited to spend on his frontcourt because he thought other schools would run out of funds and there’d be less competition.
It worked out. The market for Hawkins, in particular, was not as robust as it would have been had he hit the portal early. Tang believes his playmaking ability ties the roster together. Hawkins, who averaged 12.1 points per game, has six games with 20-plus points in his career and dropped a career-high 30 points against Iowa last season.
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“He’s not a guy who has to score a lot of points, but he impacts winning in a lot of different ways and he can score,” Tang said. “There so much to like. He’s such an intelligent player. Plays with passion and emotion. You never have to get him up for a game. I like kids that you gotta like kind of rein back rather than the ones you got to stir up.”
With his ability to pass, shoot and handle at 6-10, Hawkins has been a prospect NBA teams have eyed for several years. He would have been a borderline second-rounder in the 2024 draft. Tang pitched Hawkins that if he’s able to bump up his productivity and turn K-State back into a winner, then his stock will likely rise.
“If you’re as healthy as you possibly can be in March, then we can make a deep run,” Tang said.
Two years ago, Tang built his roster around Keyontae Johnson and Markquis Nowell, drawing skepticism as to whether his team had enough firepower. Those Cats made the Elite Eight.
This time he will draw skepticism that a three-big lineup can actually work, but Tang talks like he’s not scared to go that route and even believes it’ll be a strength.
“At the end of the game, when everybody’s tired, 6-10 is still 6-10,” he said. “Seven foot is still 7-foot. That’s what I like.”
(Photo: Steven Branscombe / USA Today)
