It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jerome Tang is one of the few college basketball coaches in the country who doesn’t have a single objection about Baylor adding a former NBA Draft pick to its roster in the middle of the current season.
Tang spent nearly two decades working as an assistant coach for the Bears. He considers Scott Drew a mentor and a close friend.
The odds of him publicly criticizing anything that happens in Waco, Texas are extremely low, even though several notable coaches like Dan Hurley, Mark Few and Tom Izzo have blasted Baylor’s mid-season addition of James Nnaji, a 7-foot center who will give the Bears an unexpected boost during Big 12 play.
“This is the landscape they gave us to operate in,” Tang said. “If it’s not against the rules, what is anybody upset about it?”
Here’s what can be considered surprising about Tang’s thoughts on the matter: he wants to do the exact same thing.
Tang was so impressed with Baylor’s controversial recruiting strategy with Nnaji, a talented big man who was the 31st overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft but never played in an NBA game, that he says his assistant coaches are working to find the same type of recruit.
“I’m hoping we can land somebody that makes people even more pissed off than they are right now,” Tang said. “That’s what we’re doing. It’s just the rules they gave us to operate by. When they give us different rules, I will operate within those rules.”
Tang added three European players with professional experience to the K-State roster during the offseason.
German recruit Elias Rapieque is a starting forward for the Wildcats. Italian recruit Dorin Buca is a reserve big man. And Serbia recruit Andrej Kostic is a talented shooter at the bottom at the end of the rotation.
The NCAA is granting college eligibility to more and more players with professional backgrounds, even some Americans who have played in the G League.
Tang would like to see the next controversial college player suit up for the Wildcats, potentially as early as this season.
“We get 15 guys on the roster, and we don’t have 15 right now,” Tang said. “So if someone becomes available that fits what we need, whether it’s for now or for the future, we’re going to bring somebody in. We’re looking at every avenue, whether it’s professional players from overseas, whether it’s guys in the G League, whether it’s guys who went undrafted or got drafted but are not playing.
“Whatever the rules allow us to do, we’re going to flip every rock and try and figure it out. That’s our job. K-State pays me to do the best job for K-State, not to meet the court of public opinion out there.”
It seems unlikely that K-State will be able to add an extra player quickly enough to make an impact this season, but few expected Baylor’s most recent roster addition.
Now that it’s happened, Tang wants to join the party.
“Some people sit around and complain, and some people get stuff done,” Tang said. “I’m on the get-it-done side of the things.”