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Pardon the Interruption shreds Kansas State coach Jerome Tang over viral press conference: 'You can't go this far'

Screenshot 2023-07-18 at 4.54.37 PMby: Riley Gates02/13/26Riley_Gates

Things seem to be going from bad to worse for Kansas State head basketball coach Jerome Tang. It’s been that kind of season in the Little Apple.

Not only are the Wildcats barreling towards their third straight losing record in Big 12 play, but their struggles are now being amplified on a national level. Tang went viral for his postgame speech on Wednesday night following a loss to Cincinnati. Furthermore, national media pundits are taking a torch to Tang and the program.

ESPN’s long-running show, Pardon the Interruption, is the latest to join in on the outrage against Tang. The duo of Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon addressed the viral press conference on Thursday night’s show, where the two ripped into the fourth-year head coach for how he treated his players.

“Can I ask the relevant question? Who recruited these people? Didn’t Tang recruit these people? He’s been there — he’s in his fourth season. So he didn’t inherit any of these people,” Kornheiser said. “So if mistakes are made, errors of judgment, they are his errors of judgment. I’m not saying he’s a bad coach. I was told he won 26 games in his first year and made the Elite Eight. He may have inherited some players on that team. But the team he’s got now, he clearly hates.”

It doesn’t take a die-hard Kansas State fan to know things are bad in Manhattan. The Wildcats won 26 games in Tang’s first season and made it all the way to the Elite Eight. It was a breath of fresh air for a fan base that had not made the previous two NCAA Tournaments and would have missed the 2020 one had it not been for the COVID pandemic.

But things have gone straight south since then. Despite spending hefty amounts in NIL every season, Tang and the Wildcats haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since that Elite Eight run. Kansas State is a combined 45-46 overall and 18-31 in league play in the last three seasons. It will no doubt require a Big 12 Tournament title to make the Big Dance this year, as an at-large spot is long gone.

The Tang buyout problem

Of course, fans are quick to call for coaches to be fired when things are bad, most of whom are not footing the bill for the buyout. That buyout appears to be a massive problem for Kansas State, as Tang is reportedly owed over $18 million if Kansas State fires him without cause before April 30 of this year.

Wilbon, though, believes Kansas State has a reason to get out of that buyout. Wilbon said if he were in charge at Kansas State, he would give Tang one more chance to walk his words back before he fired him and did so with cause.

“If I was the President of the University, I would call Coach Tang, and I’d say, ‘So, you got until the TV trucks get here at five o’clock for local news to get down in something purple, in a logo, and walk this back,'” Wilbon said. ‘”That’s how long you got, because I will also terminate you for cause. And there may not be a buyout of $16-18 million.’ And I think he’s probably a really good coach too, but you can’t go this far.”