“We had several events over the course of the last nine months with the focus being on talking with our donors about the importance of NIL,” Sexton said. “Coach Tang was very much committed to being at those and sharing his message, and sharing the message of how NIL was affecting his program. He played a big role in the momentum we have now and how NIL has improved at K-State.”

Tang also lobbied for extra NIL money from K-State supporters when Arkansas publicly expressed interest in hiring him earlier this spring. His request was granted.

The results back that up.

It has been an incredibly busy offseason for the Wildcats. With only three returning players, Tang had to overhaul the K-State basketball roster with eight incoming transfers from other Division I schools.

The Wildcats are bringing in Dug McDaniel (Michigan), CJ Jones (Illinois-Chicago), Ugonna Onyenso (Kentucky), Achor Achor (Samford), Brendan Hausen (Villanova), Max Jones (Fullerton), Baye Fall (Arkansas) and Hawkins (Illinois).

Together, they form a transfer class that ranks third nationally, per college basketball expert Evan Miya.

Even though it is difficult to calculate K-State’s NIL budget for basketball, as most players choose not to advertise the value of their deals, the Wildcats will clearly be spending millions on their roster next season.

That didn’t used to be the case.

“From his 2023 portal class to now, I’m sure (the NIL budget) has grown by a pretty fair margin,” Sexton said, “and a lot of that is because we’ve all embraced it. Our athletic department has embraced it, our donor base has embraced it and our coaches have embraced it. That has really helped strengthen coach Tang’s NIL pool, as well as the pools of all of our other programs.”

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