Kansas State head men’s basketball coach Jerome Tang walks off the floor after the Wildcats’ 80-67 loss to TCU in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Conference tournament Thursday, March 9, 2023, at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.
Kansas State head men’s basketball coach Jerome Tang walks off the floor after the Wildcats’ 80-67 loss to TCU in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Conference tournament Thursday, March 9, 2023, at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.
First-year Kansas State men’s basketball head coach Jerome Tang was named as a semifinalist for the 2023 Werner Ladder Naismith Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year award on Friday morning.
He is one of 10 coaches nationwide on the list, which includes his Big 12 counterparts in Texas’ Rodney Terry and Kansas’ Bill Self.
Other nominees include Pittburgh’s Jeff Capel, Northwestern’s Chris Collins, UCLA’s Mick Cronin, Florida Atlantic’s Dusty May, Purdue’s Matt Painter, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson and Marquette’s Shaka Smart.
The award’s four finalists will be announced on March 20.
This is the fourth national award for which Tang has been named a finalist. He is also a finalist for the Joe B. Hall Award (given to the top first-year Division I head coach), the Ben Jobe Award (given to the top Division I minority coach) and the Jim Phelan Award (the Division I Coach of the Year award).
Tang was selected as Big 12 Coach of the Year by both the league coaches and the Associated Press last Sunday. He is the seventh head coach in school history to earn the honor.
Tang has led the Wildcats to a 23-9 record in his first year at the helm.
