The Wildcats face off against the Privateers to open the 2024-25 season.
Fresh on the heels of of you Kansas State Wildcats women’s basketball team opening their 2024-25 slate with a dominating 92-45 win over Green Bay on Monday afternoon, your men’s basketball squad gets into action tonight against the Privateers of the University of New Orleans.
Don’t expect that kind of effort, offensively or defensively, from the TangCats. With so many new faces, it’s going to take them a while to gel under the bright lights, and as we saw last week during the exhibition game things can and will get sloppy until a true rotation is set. Coleman Hawkins is clearly very good. There are some guys that can be good, but fitting them together will be tough work for Jerome Tang and his staff.
So like last week, don’t expect a lot out of this one. New Orleans went 10-23 last year and have a new head coach, who did win an NAIA championship in 2022 while leading Loyola (Louisiana), but has 12 new players (eight transfers and four freshmen) and faces a big rebuild after replacing Mark Slessinger — who lead the Privateers to the NCAA Tournament in 2017, but largely led a middling team in the Southland Conference.
K-State should win this one, and hopefully it looks fairly easy doing so. Though the current betting line is around the 30-point mark, it would be a minor miracle if the Cats approached that number.
Time to go 1-0. Lets see what these Cats have in them.
We’ve got an 7:00pm CT tipoff for tonight’s season opener from Bramlage Coliseum, and you can catch the action on Big 12 Now / WatchESPN with Ben Boyle (play-by-play), Stan Weber (analyst), and Sophie Smith (sideline reporter) on the call.
If you don’t can’t access the stream, the game can be heard across portions of the 28-station K-State Sports Network with Wyatt Thompson (play-by-play) and Matt Walters (analyst) calling the action. The game will also be available online at K-Statesports.com and via the Varsity Network app as well as on satellite radio on SiriusXM Ch. 382. Live stats are also available at k-statesports.com, and social media updates (@KStateMBB) will also be a part of the coverage.
Go Cats!