MANHATTAN — If Kansas State basketball coach Jerome Tang could pinpoint one constant that plagued his Wildcats during a rocky nonconference season, ironically it would be their lack of consistency.
Nothing has been more frustrating for Tang so far in his third season than not knowing what to expect on a given night.
“As a coach, it’s hard to figure out what to do if you don’t know what you’re going to get from each guy every night,” Tang said following another disappointing loss — K-State’s third straight — against Wichita State on Dec. 21 in Wichita. “And so, what we have to figure out here is how can we get the same production from each guy every night out, rather than guessing.”
With the 84-65 loss to WSU, after they led by four at halftime, the Wildcats fell to 6-5 heading into their Big 12 opener at 6 p.m. Monday against No. 17-ranked Cincinnati (10-1) at Bramlage Coliseum. They have lost three straight games, and their nonconference record is tied with Arizona for worst in the league.
“I would say consistency,” Tang reiterated when asked what he found most troubling over the first 11 games. “If we can’t get the eight or nine guys that are playing, playing at the level that they’re capable of playing together every night.
“And it doesn’t matter if you’re a 6.3 rebound guy every night, just give me that every night. If you’re a 12-point, eight-rebound guy, just give me that every night. What’s hard is when you’re a two-point guy one night and a 20-point guy the next night. I don’t know which guy I’m getting, so we have to build that consistency.”
Against Wichita State, sophomore forward Macaleab Rich went off for a career-high 20 points, but he did not see the floor in the two games prior at St. John’s and against Drake in Kansas City. The most consistent player has been super-senior forward David N’Guessan, who has been with Tang all three years.
N’Guessan, who is second on the team in scoring at 13.9 points per game and rebounding with a 6.7 average, scored in double figures each of the first 10 games before Wichita State held him to nine. Junior Villanova transfer Brendan Hausen, a 43.2% 3-point shooter, leads the team in scoring at 13.9 points and has reached double figures eight times.
But while the Wildcats may well have played themselves out of contention for an at-large NCAA Tournament bid already, barring a miraculous turnaround in the rugged Big 12, Tang insists that nobody is throwing in the towel.
“We’re built for this. I’ve got a staff that is built for adversity and built for struggling and things,” Tang said. “We signed up for this, and so we’re not deterred — and maybe that’s not the right word — but it doesn’t faze us that there’s going to be a struggle time for us, and we have to continue growing and moving forward.
“And we’ve got the right kind of guys in the locker room, and if you were in there, we’ve got the right kind of guys because they care. And so, we just have to help them to continue to build and grow and build a consistency that we can put two halves together, and we will get there.”
It starts with a Cincinnati team that has outscored its opponents by an average of 21 points per game (79-58). The Bearcats have victories against Xavier and at Georgia Tech with their lone loss coming at Villanova.
“We’re 0-0 now in the conference — best conference in America — and we’ve got Cincinnati, who I think is highly underrated as a team, coming to the house” Tang said. “We get to play in Bram for the first time in a month, I think. It’s been a while, so I’m excited about that.
“And although our students are out of school, I know that our fans are going to show up, and we need it.”