Jerome Tang and P.J. Haggerty first met roughly eight years ago.
Haggerty, then an eighth grader, was attending a basketball camp at Baylor, where Tang was an assistant coach. Tang recalls their initial interaction vividly. “We shook hands and he didn’t squeeze my hand and didn’t look me in the eyes,” he tells Hoops HQ. “And I stopped him and I said, ‘Hey, squeeze my hand. Look me in the eyes.’ And his mom and dad always remembered that.”
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It was the start of a strong relationship between the two, even if it took almost a decade for them to finally end up on the same team. In late May, Haggerty, a 6-foot-3 junior guard, withdrew from the NBA Draft and committed to play for Tang at Kansas State. Haggerty was one of the most coveted players in the portal after averaging 21.7 points (third in the nation), 5.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.8 steals last season at Memphis.
Back in 2021, Tang tried to convince Haggerty to commit to Baylor, but the four-star prospect ultimately chose TCU. After one redshirt season with the Horned Frogs, Haggerty transferred to Tulsa, where he won AAC Rookie of the Year. He hit the portal again in 2024 and Tang, who had taken over at Kansas State, recruited him hard. But Haggerty eventually picked Memphis, which turned out to be an excellent fit. Under coach Penny Hardaway, he was the AAC Player of the Year and a consensus All-American.
Nonetheless, Haggerty opted to enter the portal for a third straight year. And this time, despite heavy competition from NC State, Tang was able to get his guy. “Our situation happened to be the best fit-wise,” Tang says. “It was a family decision (for them).”
The signing of Haggerty headlined another splashy offseason in Manhattan. A year ago, K-State utilized a substantial NIL budget to add several high-profile transfers, including Cameron Hawkins, Dug McDaniel, Brendan Hausen and Achor Achor. With eight total commits, the program’s transfer class was ranked 12th in the country by 247Sports, leading expectations to skyrocket for the 2024-25 campaign.
But the Wildcats were a major disappointment, stumbling to a 16-17 record and failing to reach the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive year. The large crop of newcomers struggled to adapt to the program. “Our non-conference was terrible because there was so much adjusting and so much learning and just so many things you had to go through to figure some things out,” Tang says. “I had to do better as a coach and I take full responsibility for that.”
K-State entered Big 12 play with a 6-5 record, having lost three games in a row. The team was inconsistent and dealt with off-court distractions, including the dismissal of Achor in mid-December. The Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman reported that the decision was “more of a ‘conduct detrimental to the team’ type of thing.”
“We had good kids and talented kids last year,” Tang says. “In this day and age of (having) 10 months with a group of guys, you don’t have time to help them with all the other things that we signed up and wanted to coach. That’s why I’d love to have them for 3-4 years and be able to help see them go from point A to point B to point C. We’re grabbing them for 10 months and trying to take them from point A to point D. You have to find guys who are a little further down the road in the maturity aspect of life.”
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Despite considerable turbulence, the season had some bright moments, like a six-game winning streak in late January-early February. Tang was hoping to bring back at least seven of the nine possible returnees for next season. Instead, all but three transferred out. Faced with another significant rebuild, Tang changed his approach.
“The whole NIL thing impacts coaches as much as it impacts players. And I had to grow and learn and then have a different approach,” Tang explains. “The fact that we’re paying them doesn’t make them professionals. They still have to be taught how to be a professional and that’s part of our responsibility. And what I did was do a better job this year of finding more mature guys that could grasp that aspect of it better.”
Tang and his staff turned over a lot of rocks to ensure they were signing the right players this summer. They gathered as much intel as possible and held several interviews with each of their targets before moving forward. Their transfer class — ranked fourth in the country by 247Sports — is once again loaded with talent, but what gives Tang confidence it will succeed is its maturity level. “I wanted highly competitive guys who are addicted to the game,” says Tang, “and they have to have a certain level of talent. But one of the things we put a premium on was maturity — their approach to life in general. Because we say, ‘How you do anything is how you do everything.’”
The Wildcats signed four transfers in addition to Haggerty: 6-foot-7 senior forward Marcus Johnson (Bowling Green), 6-foot-7 junior guard Abdi Bashir Jr. (Monmouth), 6-foot-3 senior guard Nate Johnson (Akron) and 6-foot-9 senior forward Khamari McGriff (UNC Wilmington). All of them averaged at least 11.5 points last season. Bashir Jr. was one of the nation’s top scorers, registering 20.1 points per contest and connecting on 38.3 percent of his threes. The versatile Nate Johnson won 2024-25 MAC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year with averages of 14.0 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.7 steals. Marcus Johnson shot 39.4 percent from behind the arc on high volume, and McGriff was a huge spark off the bench for a UNC Wilmington team that made the NCAA Tournament.
Tang also brought in a pair of international recruits in 6-foot-8 forward Elias Rapieque (Germany) and 6-foot-6 guard Andrej Kostic (Serbia), who starred at adidas Eurocamp in June and is projected to be picked in the 2026 NBA Draft. “He’s a talent, man. He’s a bucket, and he’s addicted to the game of basketball,” Tang says about Kostic. “He’s got an unrealistic confidence that all the great ones have.”
After a disastrous offensive season in which Kansas State averaged just 70.8 points (262nd nationally) and shot 32.5 percent from three (265th), the program is well-equipped to turn things around, especially with Haggerty running the show. Highly-skilled, dynamic guards are essential to compete in the Big 12, which is packed with defensive powerhouses.
Since arriving on campus for summer session, the players have been gelling nicely, according to Tang. During the NBA playoffs, they regularly gathered in the dorms to watch the games together. Tang is encouraged by what he’s seen and remains confident that this group’s maturity will allow it to find earlier success — and hopefully get the Wildcats back to the Big Dance. “They’re just really high-level, high-character guys who are passionate about the same things,” Tang says. “And that’s basketball and winning.”
