Welcome back to the B.O.T.C. Round Table.

With football on an open-date and basketball firing up, I thought I’d switch over to b-ball this week.

Without looking, can you name the top 5 players on K-State? If you can’t, does that change your “relationship” with the team, or is it all about on court performance?

*Note: This article is significantly more interesting if you, gentle reader, leave your own answer in the comment section.

Drew Schneider

This was my question, mainly because I sat down to write a basketball article and realized I had no idea who was on the team. I came up with Dug McDaniel and Courtney Hawkins because I wrote about their transfer, and I also cover the Big 10. N’Guessan, Rick, and Manning are the hold overs, I know, and I’m pretty sure Castillo is the point guard recruit. I also think there is a guy with the same two names, but I can’t remember the name.

Admittedly, I’ve never had a tight relationship with Kansas State basketball, but it’s interesting to watch two of the programs I write about (Kansas State and Purdue) take such a diametrically opposed approach to building a college basketball line-up. Coach Painter, at most, brings in one veteran portal guy to fill a hole left by a transfer. This season he didn’t even do that.

Meanwhile Coach Tang lives in the portal and values talent of continuity. His philosophy appears to be, “get the talent in the program and I can piece together a team.” It’s something Kentucky and Cal tried before the transfer portal with one-and-done freshman. Except now Tang gets to try and make it work with experienced upper classman.

As a basketball fan in general, I think watching Purdue try and replace Zach Edey with the guys who backed him up over the last couple seasons will be interesting. The characters are already in place. I know the plot. I’ve been invested in these guys since they were recruits and can tell you everything about them.

At the same time, I’m intrigued to see how Coach Tang’s experiment plays. He’s going into the season with a high ceiling – low floor team that hasn’t played together. I have no idea how it’s going to play out.

Jon Morse

Is there anyone on this team that’s gotten over 500 minutes of court time other than David N’Guessan? With the caveat that there’s a reason I don’t do any of our basketball writing: I have no idea what we have here, and I probably still won’t until conference play starts.

Eric Rubottom

I can name five players – David N’Guessan, Buddy Rich, Taj Manning, Dug McDaniel, Achor Achor – but are they the top 5? Who knows. That’s why I’ll have a pre-season primer coming in the next several weeks. Does it change my relationship with the team? If I’m honest, yeah…kind of. And if I’m keeping it 100, it kinda sorta makes me start wondering if Tang is the right guy long term. I know basketball is more susceptible, and maybe more accommodating, of larger percentage roster turnover, but keeping 20% of your roster year-over-year for *whatever reason* and treating it like a pickup game at the Y can’t be good for building a *program*.

Wildcat00

LOL. What’s hoops, precious?

Seriously though, the fact that I can’t name more than one player is a sign that my relationship with the program is on the down low until very late in the season. (I accept this is a me problem though).\

Luke Sobba

I write a large share of the recaps and get pretty immersed in basketball during the season. But not only could I not name the top five; I would be hard-pressed to name *any* five. That is partly because I’m not the sports junkie I once was. I don’t attribute my off-season ambivalence to roster turnover, though. I’m just too old to be as obsessed as I once was. There was something personally rewarding about investing in Dean Wade, Barry Brown, Kamau Stokes, *et al.* over the course of their years-long careers, sure. But that’s only because they eventually won. Had they hung around for four years and finished mid-pack, I would have wanted something different, and I would not have cared if we did it through rent-a-player roster construction. I have some concerns about the amount of turnover, but if the new “annual rebuild” model yields wins, I’ll buy in. I suspect everyone will. It’s about the name of the front of the jerseys, right?

JT VanGilder

Top 5? I mean, I can name five guys without looking, but that doesn’t mean they are the top 5. I expect Coleman Hawkins to be a big contributor considering the big bag has was given, but beyond that? Dug McDaniel *should* be an upgraded facilitator, and we *should* have better outside shooting. But it’s all a big fat question mark to me. It’s hard to know what you’re going to have year-to-year with this much turnover. I understand this is part of the new wave of the transfer portal, but top programs don’t get 10 new players every year. At some point you have to get guys to buy-in and develop, and you have to trust your recruiting and scouting to do a good job identifying and landing prospects that fit your vision.

Regardless, these are still “my” Cats, and I’m still a season ticket holder. I’ll keep supporting them for as long as it still says K-State or Wildcats on the front of the jersey.