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College basketball rankings: Kansas State surges into Top 25 And 1 after upsetting Texas, extending win streak – CBS Sports
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After winning just 14 games last season and making a change in leadership, Kansas State was picked to finish last in the Big 12 this year in a poll of the league’s 10 head head coaches.
And KSU might still finish last.
The Big 12 is ridiculous and capable of eating up just about anybody other than Kansas. Every member is currently ranked in the top 40 at KenPom.com, which suggests a quality team will have to finish last. That said, nine weeks into this season, it’s looking less and less likely that the Big 12’s last-place team will be Kansas State. The Wildcats smashed Texas 116-103 late Tuesday inside the Moody Center to extend their winning streak to seven games and improve to 13-1 on the season, including 2-0 in the league, under first-year coach Jerome Tang.
“I am so proud of our young men for their resilience, their fight and their fortitude,” Tang said afterward.
What. A. Story.
Tang, now 56, waited until he was 55 years old to accept his first head-coaching job in college and took over a Kansas State program that had gone 13-41 in Big 12 contests the previous three seasons. That reality prompted the coaching change. Tang was hired March 21, and in a matter of just a few months, he used the transfer portal to remake KSU’s roster to the point where seven of the Wildcats’ top eight scorers this season are players who were not in KSU’s program last season — among them Florida transfer Keyontae Johnson, who is averaging 18.9 points and 6.9 rebounds while shooting 40.9% from 3-point range on 3.1 attempts per contest.
Kansas State’s resume is now highlighted by a 3-1 record in Quadrant 1, with zero losses outside of the first quadrant, and features victories over the Texas team that’s beaten Gonzaga, the LSU team that’s beaten Arkansas and the West Virginia team that is in the top 25 at KenPom.com. That’s super-strong and why the Wildcats have been moved to No. 13 in Wednesday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings.
Up next for Kansas State is Saturday’s game at Baylor where Tang will coach against Scott Drew for the first time after serving as his assistant the previous 19 seasons. A win there would push the Wildcats to 3-0 in the Big 12 for the first time since they started 4-0 in the league in the 2012-13 season.
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