Kansas State basketball coach Jerome Tang keeps a positive outlook amid mounting losses
MANHATTAN — Kansas State basketball coach Jerome Tang isn't afraid to be the bad cop.
He has called out his Wildcats before when they're not playing up to his expectations.
So why, with the Wildcats mired in a slump that with the season winding down and hopes of an NCAA Tournament bid slipping away, does he remain so upbeat heading into the stretch run?
Simple, he said Thursday while looking ahead to Saturday's 1 p.m. home game against Brigham Young (19-7, 7-6 Big 12) at Bramlage Coliseum. While final results suggest otherwise — K-State is now 15-11 and 5-8 in the conference — Tang sees better days ahead.
"When your guys give you an effort that gives you a chance to win the game, then there's going to be some little thing that can be adjusted. It's not like you've got to throw the baby out with the bathwater," Tang said. "And so, our goal as a staff is to figure out how to keep us moving forward.
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"And there's just little tweaks, and if you're negative, it's like the energy vampire, sucking all the energy out of the room. I don't want to be that guy, and I don't want my team to be that kind of a team."
Tang does have a point. While the Wildcats have lost seven of their last games and three in a row, the last four especially have produced a more consistent effort if not the desired outcome.
Double-digit road losses at Iowa State and Houston were understandable, but a 20-point blowout at home against Oklahoma and a three-point setback at last-place Oklahoma State were a low point. Then came a signature 75-72 overtime victory over Kansas at Bramlage that Tang saw as a turning point.
Three more losses followed — 72-66 at BYU, 75-72 at home to TCU and 62-56 Saturday at Texas — in which the Wildcats gave themselves a chance down the stretch.
"I do believe that we're like one or two plays away from being able to win," Trump said. "Out of six games now that are basically one-possession games, you can look back and you've got to figure out what is the thing that we can adjust to change, that could result in a different outcome in two or three of them.
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"I'm reading this book called "Do the New You," by Steven Furtick, and he says that you're not stuck unless you stop. And so, we're not going to stop. We're going to keep trying to figure this thing out because we're really close."
This is Tang's first prolonged slump in his two seasons as a head coach. Last year's team had a bad stretch in the middle of the Big 12 schedule but rebounded to finish strong and then caught fire in the NCAA Tournament.
Since a 4-1 start in the Big 12, these Wildcats have fallen off then NCAA bubble to the point that they're no longer a part of the bracketology conversation.
Tang has made a point of treating each game as its own entity and "putting it in a box," after it's done, win or lose. But he said Thursday that it doesn't mean that he has ignored the bigger picture in team meetings.
"We show big picture, and then we break it into details on how you eat a steak one bite at a time," Tang said. "But you've got to see the steak, so we show them the steak and then we try to figure out how we can do it one bite at a time."
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With two games a week and several recent Saturday-Monday turnarounds while also adjusting to opponents' different styles of play, making major changes is difficult. That is why Tang and his staff are looking at common threads while the losses pile up.
"What we're trying to do is figure out what's the common denominator in each that we can then work on," Tang said. Because you can't work on everything.
"We've got to shoot more catch-and-shoot shots and less off-the-dribble shots and figure out ways to get to the free-throw line."
Other concerns are turnovers and a deficit when it comes to offensive rebounding.
"I know when you stack losses together, it doesn't seem like you're close, but that's why we don't look at it like six games," Tang said. "We look at it like one game, what can we improve? How are we getting better and moving forward?
"Somebody in the country is not on the bubble right now or not in the field or is in a struggle, and they're going to get hot. Somebody in the country is going to do it, why not be the Cats?"
Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas State basketball coach Jerome Tang remains upbeat during slump
