Report: Jerome Tang to return to Baylor teaching workers

Former Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang is returning to Baylor because the affiliate head coach, ESPN reported on Tuesday.

Tang reportedly was working with the college to finalize a multi-year contract to rejoin longtime coach Scott Drew’s workers.

Tang, 59, spent almost twenty years on the Bears’ teaching workers, together with when Baylor gained the nationwide championship in 2021. He was an assistant coach from 2003-17 and affiliate head coach from 2017-22.

Tang changed Bruce Weber as head coach at Kansas State in 2022, forging a 71-57 document in three-plus years on the helm. Tang directed the Wildcats to a No. 3 seed and an Elite Eight look in his first season, however he adopted that with three straight sub-.500 information in Massive 12 play.

He was fired with trigger by Kansas State on Feb. 16, 4 days after happening a postgame rant after the Wildcats suffered a 91-62 loss to Cincinnati in entrance of a house crowd listed at 7,274 on the 13,500-seat Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan, Kan., that included a number of college students sporting paper baggage over their heads.

“This was embarrassing. These dudes don’t should put on this uniform. There will likely be only a few of them in it subsequent yr,” Tang mentioned after the sport through which the Wildcats by no means led. “Like, I’m embarrassed for the college. I’m embarrassed for our followers, our scholar part. You already know, it’s simply ridiculous.”

In asserting the firing days later, Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor mentioned, “Latest public feedback and conduct, along with this system’s total course, haven’t aligned with Ok-State’s requirements for supporting student-athletes and representing the college. … Mainly, his feedback concerning the student-athletes and the destructive response to these feedback from sources, each nationally and regionally, is the place it form of felt like I wanted to make the choice.”

Tang issued an announcement on the time disagreeing with how the college characterised his firing.

“I’m deeply disillusioned with the college’s choice and strongly disagree with the characterization of my termination,” Tang mentioned in an announcement. “I’ve all the time acted with integrity and faithfully fulfilled my obligations as head coach. … I stay happy with what we constructed collectively and assured that I’ve all the time acted in the perfect pursuits of the college and our student-athletes.”

Drew and Baylor skilled their very own struggles final season, ending 6-12 within the Massive 12 and lacking the NCAA Match regardless of having at the very least two gamers anticipated to be picked in June’s NBA Draft.

The longest-tenured coach within the convention, Drew expressed empathy for Tang after his firing when Baylor misplaced 90-74 to Kansas State on Feb. 17.

“Nineteen years collectively, he is household,” Drew mentioned. “We gained championships collectively. It has been emotional for me, our workers and our program, as a result of everybody can relate. If you happen to’ve acquired a brother or a good friend they usually undergo hardship, you are feeling it.”

–Subject Stage Media