K-State’s 2025 Big 12 slate released — can Jerome Tang’s new team survive the gauntlet?

Jerome Tang’s rebuild enters a new phase — and it starts with a gauntlet.

Kansas State’s Big 12 basketball matchups for 2025 are out, and the Wildcats are set for home-and-home showdowns with Kansas, TCU, and West Virginia as Tang tries to get the program back to March Madness.

Full dates, tip times, and TV info for the games will drop later.

The Cats last squared off with TCU in a home-and-home during the 2022–23 season and did the same with West Virginia in 2023–24.

K-State’s nine-game home Big 12 slate features Baylor, BYU, UCF, Cincinnati, Iowa State, Kansas, TCU, Utah, and West Virginia. Road trips include stops at Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, Houston, Kansas, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas Tech, and West Virginia.

After missing the NCAA tournament two years in a row, Tang is retooling the roster. Only three scholarship players return: point guard David Castillo and forwards Mobi Ikegwuruka and Taj Manning.

The rest? New faces, mostly via the transfer portal.

Fourteen of the league’s 16 teams won at least 16 games in 2024–25. Eight cracked the 20-win mark, led by national runner-up and Big 12 champ Houston, which finished with 35 wins. Thirteen teams made the postseason, with seven landing NCAA Tournament bids — including Arizona, Baylor, BYU, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, and Texas Tech.

K-State’s transfer haul includes MAC Player of the Year Nate Johnson (Akron), Bowling Green’s Marcus Johnson (16.2 PPG, 5.2 RPG), second-team All-American PJ Haggerty (Memphis), Khamari McGriff (UNC Wilmington), Abdi Bashir (Omaha), international prospects Elias Rapieque and Andrej Kostic, and 6-11 JUCO big man Stephen Osei, who is expected to redshirt.

The Wildcats finished 16–17 overall and 9–11 in conference play last season, tying for ninth in the Big 12.

It’s too early to tell if the roster overhaul will pay off, but Tang has given the Wildcats a fighting chance.