K-State Job Provides Opportunity for Casey Alexander To Have Consistent Success

During his time as the coach at Belmont, Casey Alexander's teams went 166-60 in six years. In each year, the Bruins won at least 20 games, including a 26-6 record last season. They also won the Missouri Valley Conference regular season championship. To build a contender at any level of basketball is a challenge, but doing it at a mid-major level in today's college basketball is especially tough.

With the transfer portal, any time a player at a lower level has a big season, they will hear from many other schools trying to get them to transfer. During an appearance earlier in the week on Jon Rothstein’s "Inside College Basketball Now" podcast, Alexander told the college basketball analyst that it is nearly impossible to have sustained success at the lower level.

“[It’s] almost impossible,” Alexander said." Unless you have one of those rare administrations that’s just going to throw big, big money — unproportional to where you actually are — it’s almost impossible. We lost some great players through the last four or five years.”

Belmont lost several talented players during his time as the coach

While the Bruins won many basketball games during his time there, that didn't mean that Alexander didn't see his team ravaged by the transfer portal. The top player to leave Belmont during his time was guard Will Richard, who went on to play a huge part in Florida's national championship two seasons ago.

He wasn't the only talented player to leave, as other guys like Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Cade Tyson and Isaiah Walker all transferred to Power-4 teams. If he had stayed at Belmont, he would have lost multiple key contributors from the regular-season Missouri Valley Conference champions.

Now, a potential opportunity to not only build a program back up, but also find sustained success, exists as he is the new coach of a K-State program that will be looking to get things back on track following consecutive losing seasons.

While he is at a new program, Alexander is laying a similar foundation in Manhattan

While he is now a coach at a Big 12 school, that doesn't mean Alexander will make wholesale changes in building a program. The Wildcats return only one player from last year's team in Andrej Kostic, so Alexander had to attack the transfer portal in a big way. In total, Alexander brought in 10 guys from the transfer portal, with a nice variety of guards, while also having forwards who can stretch the defense from the 3-point line.

With the personnel that Alexander has brought in, Belmont fans might think they are watching their team next year when K-State is on the television. The Bruins led the country in effective field goal percentage last year, proving that Alexander does a great job of getting his guys the best possible shots. With transfers like Brandon Rechsteiner, Timo Malovec and Jaden Schutt, defenses are going to be forced to pick their poison.

If they stay close to the shooters, the Wildcats will have driving lanes to attack the basket. If they stay closer to the basket, those shooters will get great scoring opportunities from the three-point line. Alexander showed that he was able to build a consistent program at Belmont, and now, the opportunity is there at K-State to do just the same thing.

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