On Monday afternoon, a little less than 30 hours before the first edition of the 2023 Sunflower Showdown basketball matchup between No. 2 Kansas and 13th-ranked Kansas State, the head coaches of each program were meeting with local media members to preview the game.
The location of their press conferences — KU’s Bill Self in Lawrence and first-year K-State coach Jerome Tang in Manhattan — was not the only thing drastically different about the tone of the two pressers.
As Self and veteran forward Jalen Wilson talked about bracing for the madness that is Bramlage Coliseum when Kansas comes to town, Tang was busy making a plea of sorts for his fan base to act a little differently than it has in the past.
“I don’t want our fans to show up to the game because they hate the other team,” Tang told reporters. “I want them to show up because they love Kansas State.”
He went on to say that every player on the KSU roster was in Manhattan because they loved K-State, be it the coaching staff, the community, the fans, the school or all of the above. And while Tang appears to be sincere in his attempts to try to turn the KSU cheering section into more of a loud-and-proud bunch, he also seems to understand just how big of an ask that really is.
“I would be real interested to see how we can really change this thing around if we’re motivated by love rather than by hate,” he said. “I just feel — and I know I’m going to upset some people — I feel like we, the Kansas State community and family, allow them to live rent-free in our heads way too much.”
For years, Kansas State fans have shown up on game night inside Bramlage Coliseum ready to spit fire toward the visiting Jayhawks. While rooting hard against your team’s opponent certainly is nothing new in college athletics, it has always seemed to have an extra gear in Manhattan.
Perhaps that’s been in the form of the “F#ck K-U” chants that the famed techno song Sandstorm inspired the K-State crowd to chant at the top of its lungs. Or maybe it stems from the court-stormings that have taken place when the Wildcats have won, the most notable of which came in 2015, when K-State student Nathan Power bumped KU’s Jamari Traylor on his way to celebrate the victory on the court.
Then there have been those games when Kansas State isn’t even playing Kansas yet still hears its fans break out the “F#ck K-U” chant. The most recent example of this came in last year’s Texas Bowl, when Sandstorm came on during K-State’s victory over LSU and the fans went wild with the anti-KU chant like they do at home games.
In 2017, K-State president Richard Myers released a statement asking for the chant to stop. He called it “personally embarrassing” and “not what one expects from a world-class university.”
Legendary K-State football coach Bill Snyder also tried his hand at ending the chant. And on both occasions, it either disappeared or diminished for a while. But it has never fully gone away and it has continued to take on new life and new forms at both expected and unexpected times.
With the Wildcats off to a 15-2 start to the season and ranked 13th in the country, there’s no telling what might happen Tuesday night.
Yes, it will be loud and absolutely rockin’. And, yeah, the Wildcat fans in attendance will want to take down No. 2 in the worst way.
But will Tang’s words be enough to keep the vulgar chants out of the game? Don’t bet on it. But it sure will be interesting to find out.
Tipoff is slated for 6 p.m. on ESPN.
K-State Head Coach @CoachJTang‘s message to Wildcat fans ahead of the #SunflowerShowdown. #KStateMB #KUbball pic.twitter.com/LiqJWpqhpv
— Rob Collins (@RobCollinsTV) January 17, 2023
