Kansas State basketball forward Coleman Hawkins was voted co-newcomer and named to the preseason all-conference second team, but that was all the love the Wildcats got from Big 12 coaches Thursday ahead of the 2024-25 season.
K-State was picked to finish eighth in the newly expanded 16-team conference leading into Jerome Tang’s third season as head coach. The Wildcats had 133 points, just two behind No. 7 Texas Tech’s 135 and five behind sixth-place Cincinnati (140)
Kansas was a narrow favorite to win the league, receiving nine first-place votes and 215 points total, followed by defending champion Houston with 211 points and five votes to repeat. Iowa State (194), Baylor (185) and Arizona (179) rounded out the top five, with Iowa State and Baylor each receiving one first-place vote.
Tang talked about the overall strength of the Big 12 during a news conference last month before the Wildcats’ first official practice.
Related: Kansas State basketball reveals full 2024-25 schedule with record 20 Big 12 games
Related: With Kansas State’s basketball roster fully stocked, Jerome Tang is eager to get started
Kansas senior forward David N’Guessan (1) reacts alongside graduate senior guard Tylor Perry (2) after gaining a lead in the second half of the Sunflower Showdown inside Bramlage Coliseum Monday, February 5, 2024.
“I will say this about our league. The Big 12 is the best basketball league in the country before last year, and then we added the conference champion (Houston),” Tang said. “We were the best basketball league in the country last year and now we’ve added four schools, one of them that is picked to win the national championship.
“And we have four or five other schools in the league that people are picking to have a chance to win a national championship. So, that’s at least six games this year we’re going to play against a team that in the preseason people thought had a chance to win a national championship. And so that’s what makes it exciting for you as a coach and a…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/where-big-12-coaches-picked-223126007.html
Author : The Topeka Capital-Journal
Publish date : 2024-10-10 22:31:26
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