Kansas State basketball guard Dug McDaniel on emphasizing defense
Kansas State basketball guard Dug McDaniel reflects on a meeting with coach Jerome Tang about making defense a priority.
K-State Athletics
The Kansas State basketball transfer portal is suddenly heating up, and given the latest flurry of activity, it is turning into a fire sale.
Starting point guard Dug McDaniel became the third K-State player of the day and fifth overall to enter the portal Monday to leave coach Jerome Tang facing another roster rebuild for 2025-26.
McDaniel, a 5-foot-11 junior transfer from Michigan, was the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer with 11.4 points per game and led the team with 4.9 assists. He had a stormy relationship with Tang at first but took over as the starter to begin Big 12 play and never looked back.
McDaniel is the second starter to enter the portal, joining shooting guard Brendan Hausen, who committed to Iowa on Monday. The Wildcats lost starting forwards David N’Guessan and Coleman Hawkins to graduation, while super-senior guard Max Jones is hoping to gain an extra season of eligibility after starting his career at the Division II level.
McDaniel was one of the Wildcats’ top-rated portal pickups last year after two years at Michigan, where he averaged team-best 16.3 points as a sophomore. K-State was hoping to build next year’s team around him, but it wasn’t to be.
Earlier Monday, center Uganna Onyenso and forward Baye Fall entered the portal. Neither was a major surprise. The first to depart was sophomore forward Macaleab Rich, who, like Onyenso and Fall, was not a big contributor on a Wildcat team that finished 16-17.
The only players now eligible to return from 2024-25 are guards David Castillo, CJ Jones and Mobi Ikegwuruka, plus forward Taj Manning.
Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at [email protected] or on X (formerly Twitter) at @arnegreen.
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