NCAA Basketball: 5 recent hires that has had Deion Sanders-level hype

Jerome Tang – Kansas State Wildcats

The closest comparison to Sanders might be from last year’s coaching carousel. Tang was a former assistant at Baylor and on the staff that won the 2021 NCAA Basketball national championship. He replaced Bruce Weber, who had success at Kansas State but three straight years of under .500 play was too much for the program.

What’s funny is that things weren’t expected to go well for the Wildcats in Tang’s first year. The roster didn’t look too appealing on paper and the biggest name among the newcomers was Keyontae Johnson, a transfer from Florida who missed the prior two years after suffering a cardiac incident.

Turns out that Johnson was fully healthy and played at all All-Big 12 level. And guard Markquis Nowell ended up playing at an All-American level, leading Kansas State to 26 total wins and minutes away from making the Final Four. Coach Tang had plenty of viral moments of his own and became a national star.

The Wildcats are poised to once again be a factor in the Big 12 and the program is after a number of top 50 prospects in the 2024 and 2025 recruiting classes. It’s impressive how big of a turnaround the program has had under Tang and expect him to be in the mix for even bigger jobs if he keeps this up.