Kansas State’s Taj Manning’s Value Far Exceeds His Statistics on Men's Basketball Team

If you went strictly by Taj Manning’s statistics, you wouldn’t necessarily appreciate his value to the Kansas State men’s basketball team.

His value far exceeds the 1.8 points per game he’s averaging in the 10 Wildcats’ games in which he’s played. His 3.0 rebounds per game don’t exactly have Big 12 teams quaking in fear.

Manning, the last player remaining from the Wildcats’ 2023 run to the Elite Eight, brings intangibles, a sense of teamwork, solid defense and a knack for being in the right place and doing the right thing.

In K-State’s recent 106-76 win over South Dakota, Manning was a plus-32, meaning the Wildcats scored 32 more points when he was on the court than they allowed. The 6-foot-7, 230-pound junior from Grandview, Missouri, scored six points and had five rebounds in 20 minutes of play.

“I’m so proud of him,” Tang said in a postgame news conference. “Plus-32 on the floor tonight.

“He’s been averaging probably one rebound every three-and-a-half to four minutes. Today he was a little off on that. I think [it was] probably one rebound every five minutes.

“But he’s normally better than that. And so, he just creates opportunities for us and he’s willing to do all the little things that contribute to winning but may not show up on the stat sheet.”

Rough schedule ahead for K-State

After the Wildcats’ next game Sunday against Louisiana-Monroe, K-State’s schedule toughens up. K-State’s Big 12 schedule begins Saturday, Jan. 3 when 10th-ranked BYU comes to Manhattan.

It doesn’t get easier the following week with games at No. 1-ranked Arizona in Tucson, and a matchup with can-be-tough Arizona State in Tempe.

K-State needs Manning’s contributions — no matter how behind the scenes they appear — to turn an 8-4 start into Big 12 success. He is the definition of a role player, a positive and contributing one.

“I just love playing for Coach Tang,” Manning told reporters in a recent postgame news conference about K-State head coach Jerome Tang.

“He’s a great guy and I love the program. I love K-State, everything about it. It’s a perfect situation for me on the court and off the court.

“It has been tough at times, but I’m not somebody who gives up when things aren’t going my way. I knew that if I kept doing everything right, surely my time would come.”

‘Draymond Green’

Manning was described as a “Draymond Green” type of player by K-State’s leading scorer P.J. Haggerty. Green, a former Michigan State standout, is a do-everything player for the Golden State Warriors and a four-time NBA champion.

“Taj is a hard, hard worker,” Haggerty said at a news conference. “He’s not really out there looking to score. I mean, he can score, but he’s just doing the little things like a Draymond Green for us.

Golden State forward Draymond Green has won four NBA championships with the Warriors. | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

“Just the spirit he brings, and he’s been here a couple years, so he knows the expectations. He just comes in, just plays hard, plays his role, and we all love Taj.”

Manning is an experienced presence for Tang and the Wildcats, especially in an era of so much turnover and so many transfers.

“He knows what we want it to look like and what has happened is he’s become more comfortable speaking about it,” Tang said about Manning.

“And even if he wasn’t playing as much early, he was still willing to say, ‘Hey, this is now what it’s supposed to look like.’

“And the great thing about Taj [he] does it every single day, right? Every day you know what you’re going to get.

“He is coming in. He’s going to show up early. He's gonna get up shots. He’s gonna work and lift extra. He’s going to follow everything Morgan [Kropp, assistant sports nutritionist] says about nutrition.

“I’m glad I finally got smart enough to have him out there because it’s going to show the other guys, hey if we do those things it translates to being on the floor …

“And I’m excited because I think there’s still another notch to him. I mean he shoots the ball really well in practice and he just hasn’t given himself the opportunity to fail that way in the game yet and I think that part is going to be a next step.

“Not that we need people to score but if you have to guard four guys out there, it means that it opens the rim up for somebody and that’s the next step for him.”

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