WVU faces a passing challenge in Kansas State point guard Markquis Nowell

MORGANTOWN — There is a distinct strength that first-year head coach Jerome Tang has brought to the Kansas State men’s basketball team.

The Wildcats (11-1), who had won just 13 Big 12 games over the last three seasons under former coach Bruce Weber, can really pass the basketball.

More to the point, senior point guard Markquis Nowell — one of the few holdovers at K-State after the Wildcats finished 14-17 last season to force Weber’s resignation and the hiring of Tang from Baylor — can really pass the basketball.

WVU STATS
K-STATE STATS

The miniature 5-foot-8, but speedy guard from Harlem, N.Y., leads the Big 12 averaging 8.3 assists per game.

That, in itself, doesn’t do his numbers justice, so we’ll take it a few steps more.

Kansas’ Dujuan Harris, who is second in the conference in assists, would need 21 in his next game just to tie where Nowell is now.

Or, another angle is to say Nowell has already had four games this season with at least 11 assists. WVU hasn’t had a player with that many since Jordan McCabe had 11 of them against TCU in 2019.

“He is their offense. He’s terrific at penetrate and pitch,” said WVU head coach Bob Huggins, who will lead the 24th-ranked Mountaineers (10-2) into Bramlage Coliseum at 7 p.m. Saturday to open their conference season. “He gets the ball to the right people. They rely so much on him creating offense. He is, without a question, the engine that makes the train run. There’s no doubt.”

What Tang has done with the Wildcats’ offense is take advantage of Nowell’s speed and passing by constantly keeping him on the move.

“He’s not a guy who brings the ball down the floor and enters it to the wing and trots away,” Huggins said.

Rather, K-State generally gets their offense in gear after Nowell touches the ball a second time in an untraditional spot for small point guards.

“They move him,” Huggins continued. “He’ll pass it and go through, but he’s going to come out on the other side, and they are going to reverse the ball back to him, and he’ll take off with it.”

That’s led to more points for Kansas State. Last season, the Wildcats averaged 69 points and shot 42%. Under Tang, K-State is scoring 75 points and shooting 47% from the field.

Some of that is Nowell, who is also scoring 13.7 points per game, but the bulk is from forward Keyontae Johnson, one of the top stories in the Big 12 this season.

It was back in 2020 when Johnson was the star player at Florida, but he collapsed in a game early in his junior season due to a heart condition that saw him hospitalized for 10 days.

His only action on the court since being released from the hospital before this season was a ceremonial start on Florida’s Senior Day last season.

Johnson earned his degree from Florida, was eventually medically cleared to play again and then transferred to Kansas State as a graduate transfer.

His comeback story has seen Johnson score in double figures in every game this season and he’s fifth in the Big 12 averaging 17.7 points per game.

“He was a McDonald’s All-American and the best player Florida had,” Huggins said. “He can shoot it, he can bounce it and he can pass it. It was a hard thing to see when he went down. Then you read what’s happened in the interim between then and now, the kid has been through a lot.”

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