Where did this Kansas State basketball season go wrong? Players react.
· Yahoo Sports
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Long before Kansas State basketball allowed the most points that any team had ever given up in a single game in the Big 12 Tournament's history, the season went off the rails.
The misery of the 2025-26 Wildcats basketball season didn't start after it fired Jerome Tang for cause on Feb. 15. His dismissal came the day after the Wildcats lost their sixth game in a row, beginning Big 12 play 1-11.
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An identifiable point of derailment may be difficult to come by. Who knows what the season would have looked like if the Wildcats had topped Nebraska at the T-Mobile Center in late November, where their season ended four months later after a 105-91 defeat to the Cougars. Maybe it was the Bowling Green loss or K-State's struggles with Louisiana-Monroe to end the non-conference.
It's hard to believe the Wildcats started 5-0 and with so much hope, only to go on to win seven of their next 27.
"I feel like, as a team, we didn't hold each other accountable enough," senior Khamari McGriff said. "We have an extremely special group. Early on, with open gyms and stuff, I was just excited to play with guys this good. Sky's the limit for us, but as a team, we didn't hold ourselves accountable enough to be player-led earlier and take every possession seriously. We were very close off the court, but on the court, we could have been better."
Effort was a constant theme for the Wildcats throughout the year, notably at the end of their home loss to Kansas on Jan. 24, and then in a 34-point home loss to Iowa State two games later. Tang called out his team's level of care after their 91-62 loss to Cincinnati on Feb. 11, saying they didn't deserve to wear the uniforms afterward, in a presser that ultimately led to his firing for cause four days later.
The Wildcats said that in the month after Tang's firing, he helped bring them together following the team's loss to Cincinnati. They went 2-6 after his rant, with both wins and the final seven games being coached by interim Matthew Driscoll.
"It was hard," senior Marcus Johnson said. "At the end of the day, I'm still going out there. I still have to play for the name on the front and back of my jersey. At the end of the day, you still have to produce."
But the Wildcats were still coming up plenty short before Tang's firing. In a way, it was doubtful the coach would be brought back, even if he had finished the year without his post-Cincinnati explosion.
"I feel like the coaches put a good game plan together, but we just kept coming up short," Johnson said. "It was just a learning lesson for all of us to take these opportunities and not take any possessions for granted. Every possession matters."
Wyatt D. Wheeler covers Kansas State athletics for the USA TODAY Network and Topeka Capital-Journal. You can follow him on X at @WyattWheeler_, contact him at 417-371-6987 or email him at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Where did Kansas State basketball season go wrong?