Prior to Saturday, Kansas State had only lost four times at home against ranked opponents in the Jerome Tang era.
But after BYU’s visit to Manhattan, Tang now has five such losses with the Wildcats.
The No. 10-ranked Cougars scored a 83-73 win over Kansas State in Saturday’s Big 12 opener, marking BYU’s first 10-game win streak since the days of Jimmer Fredette more than a decade ago.
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“Obviously, BYU is a terrific team, and Kevin (Young) does a great job and was very proud of our guys’ effort,” Tang told reporters postgame.
“We have to continue to get better. To win or lose this game, we have to get better. We have some glaring things that are standing out, but they’re correctable. I know our guys’ heart, so I know that we will improve in the areas that we need to.”
The Wildcats were top 10 nationally in 3-point shooting team prior to Saturday, but against the Cougars they made just 3 of 21 attempts from behind the arc.
“Well, they didn’t go in, you know, the ones that we took, they weren’t bad shots,” Tang said. “I thought we turned down like four or five that we should have been ready to shoot, that we weren’t ready to shoot. Some of that’s a credit to (BYU’s) length, right, those closeouts, but some of it, you know, I don’t know why we didn’t take certain shots that we’d have normally taken.
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“I said at one point, ‘Man, we can’t make 3s if we don’t shoot them,’ you know. That’s one of the strengths of our team, and so, you know, a lot of credit goes to BYU, because of the percentage of 3s that we took, as opposed to 2s, it’s too great. We got to look at the film and figure that out.”
Kansas State did force 19 total BYU turnovers, but such defensive success wasn’t enough to upset the Cougars.
“We wanted to be the more aggressive team. It was great, but when you force 19 turnovers, you can’t have 17 points off (them). You need to have 27 points off of it, because there are a lot of them were live ball turnovers, and so we’ve got to capitalize,” Tang said.
“I don’t think that we capitalized on that, and I thought that they controlled the pace of the game in the second half. We didn’t play fast enough. We didn’t.”
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BYU superstar AJ Dybantsa, once a Kansas State recruiting target, dazzled once again in his first taste of Big 12 action, scoring 24 points with eight rebounds, three assists and three steals.
With his 24 points, Dybantsa is now the country’s leading scorer at 23.1 points per game.
“You know, I’ve been watching AJ since he was in the seventh grade, and love him and his family. You know, I had a great time recruiting him,” Tang said.
“I’ve watched his games this season, and he’s been one of the most efficient players, and today, he was very efficient again, you know, scoring 24 points on 15 shots.”
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Kansas State now falls to 9-5 on the season and 0-1 in Big 12 play, with a tough road trip to No. 1 Arizona and Arizona State coming up next.
“I’m hoping (our players) walk away with confidence that if that’s a top 10 team (in) the country and the team people say can win a national championship, and we didn’t play close to what we’re capable of playing, then, I mean, the ceiling is high, and so we should be really confident, excited about getting back into practice and improving them,” Tang said.
