Tang uses sermon to let Nowell ‘shoot arrows’
by @Alec_Busse
Jerome Tang was listening to a sermon earlier this season during some of his free time, and he realized the theme was easily connectable to his coaching style at Kansas State. The speaker was telling a story about how a prophet needed to shoot his arrow in an effort to take down a bad king. Tang’s mind clicked and realized that his arrow was Markquis Nowell.
In his first season as a head coach after spending the previous 19 seasons working as an assistant on Scott Drew’s staff at Baylor, Tang is regularly learning about how to be a successful head coach – in his own way.
An area of mistake early in the season, Tang said, was that he was too focused on what other team’s strengths were and what his own players couldn’t do. He was too concentrated on things that the Wildcats’ opponents were better at than his own team. Then, he heard the sermon and realized his wrongdoing, and decided to change the way he approached coaching.
Shortly after hearing the sermon, Tang and Nowell had a meeting together in Tang’s office where the first-year head coach proceeded to apologize to Nowell, who is one of just two returning players from last season’s team that won just 14 total games.
“I apologized to him,” Tang said. “I said, ‘Bro you are my arrow and we are going to win this battle with you.’”
Since the meeting, Nowell has turned into one of college basketball’s best players. In K-State’s last five games – wins over Radford, West Virginia, Texas, Baylor and Oklahoma State – Nowell is averaging 24.2 points, 10.2 assists while shooting 51 percent from the field, 50 percent from 3-point range and 91 percent from the free throw line. He’s the only player in the last 25 seasons across all of Division I to have a five-game stretch with such numbers, according to ESPN Stats and Info.
“My confidence is high because of the work that I put in each and every day,” Nowell said after Tuesday’s 65-67 victory over Oklahoma State at Bramlage Coliseum.
And it’s clear that Nowell’s confidence is high from some of the shots he’s taken in recent games. He’s pulled up from well-beyond the 3-point arc for shots in each of K-State’s last three Big 12 games even with the shot clock still providing K-State enough time to get a higher percentage look. But he’s making them – in the last three games, he’s shooting a blistering 55.6 percent from 3-point range, making 15-of-27 from the perimeter.
“I work on those shots before practice, after practice,” Nowell said. “So in games it feels like practice. Coach always talks about taking practiced shots, so that’s what I try to do.”
The best example of Tang letting Nowell “shoot his arrow” is the ridiculous 3-pointer that he has launched in the last trio of games. Tang explained that he and Nowell have an agreement that if he makes the first one, Nowell is permitted to keep hurling them toward the rim. But if he misses, Nowell needs to be aware and make smarter decisions.
“I think he opened his heart to us and we opened our hearts to him,” Tang said. … “I remember last year being at Baylor watching him play, particularly the Texas Tech game, when Kevin McCullar tried to post him up and he beat Kevin one way and beat him the other way and stripped him – I remember telling everybody, ‘That’s the toughest little joker in the Big 12.’”
This season with Tang coaching the Wildcats’ point guard, he’s turned his toughness into incredibly impactful minutes. Nowell is eighth in Bart Torvik’s Player of the Year rankings as of Wednesday, which is the highest among any player in the Big 12 – and Nowell wasn’t even named to a preseason All-Big 12 team.
“I think he’s showing that with space, time, and other guys around him,” Tang said, “and confidence that he’s a high-level, maybe the best guard in America right now.”
Nowell’s play over the last five games doesn’t project to be sustainable – heck, no player in the last 25 years is playing at his level – but Tang thinks that he’s going to going to improve. The Wildcat head coach just had to let him shoot his arrows.
“He’s punching through paper ceilings,” Tang said. “Some people are saying because he’s 5’8 that this is his ceiling. He’s just kicking that thing open.”
