GREENSBORO, N.C. – As long as Kansas State continues to insist that a washed-out shade of lavender fit only for dyeing Easter eggs qualifies as “purple,” it’s fair to say that Markquis Nowell walked out to the pregame press conference on Thursday draped in the colors of his adopted school, a pastel violet hoodie with a throwback snarling wildcat hanging off his 5-foot-8 frame.
Despite only being in Manhattan for two years, Nowell represents those colors more than anyone on the Wildcats. After transferring from Arkansas-Little Rock before last season, he was one of two players, along with junior shooter Ismael Massoud, to stay on the roster when Kansas State hired new head coach Jerome Tang before this season.
The diminutive dynamo originally from Harlem was crucial in building the new era of K-State basketball.
During the Wildcats’ Big 12 quarterfinal loss to TCU, the ESPN+ broadcast showed a text message from Nowell to Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor, exhorting them that “We need Jerome Tang!!”
When the former Baylor assistant coach arrived on campus, Nowell turned into the new staff’s top recruiter as Tang completely revamped the roster.
“It was a blessing that ‘Quis chose to stay. … He believed in us as a staff and he helped us recruit. He’s responsible for the whole team,” Tang said. “He went to so many official visit dinners and breakfasts. I thought he gained 20 pounds, he ate so many meals.”
On the court, Nowell went from an honorable mention all-Big XII selection in his first year to a third-team All-American. Muscled up at 160 pounds – he’s short but certainly not small – he ignites Kansas State’s fast-paced transition offense by speeding up other point guards with his swiping on-ball defense and serves as the Wildcats’ hub in the halfcourt, getting into the lane off ball screens or just by virtue of his quick first step.
Nowell averaged 7.6 assists per game, one of only three players in the country to surpass seven, and, at 16.8 points per game, was the only one of those three players to also average over 15 points (St. Louis’s Yuri Collins and Marquette’s Tyler Kolek were the others).
“I’m really excited. He’s a really great pick-and-roll ball-handler, can shoot it from anywhere,” Montana State guard Darius Brown II, the Big Sky Conference Defensive MVP, said. “It’s going to be a test to me.”
Brown is the other side of a crucial matchup in Montana State’s first-round NCAA Tournament game against Kansas State on Friday as the Bobcats try to erase the memories of a blowout loss to Texas Tech a year ago.
Like Nowell, Brown is a transfer who’s quickly become part of the soul of his team. After coming in from Cal State-Northridge before the season, he averaged 9.1 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.7 assists. Despite leading the Big Sky Conference in assist-to-turnover ratio (with just 50 turnovers in 33 games, he was one of the most circumspect high-usage point guards in the country) and steals, and winning the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year award, Brown was overshadowed at times by the bruising post combo of Jubrile Belo and Great Osobor and the levitating magnetism of RaeQuan Battle.
That’s partly due to Brown’s low-key attitude, which initially puzzled Montana State head coach Danny Sprinkle, a former Bobcats guard himself who has imported experienced transfer point guards each of the last two seasons in Xavier Bishop (Missouri-Kansas City) before Brown and Robert Ford III, an all-conference transfer from Idaho State.
“He’s brought a lot of leadership to our team,” Montana State head coach Danny Sprinkle said about Brown. “He’s very even-keel, which was hard for me the first two months coaching him because I would get fired up, and he would be like, ‘OK, Coach, OK.’ I would be like, no, you don’t get what I’m trying to get to you. The more I started to learn about him and coach him, he has that fire in him even though he’s not showing it.”
Even Brown’s best moments of the year were overshadowed. He scored a crucial 3-point play in the final two minutes at Montana. only for Battle to hit the winning free throws after a controversial call on Lonnell Martin Jr.
In the Big Sky tournament semifinal against Weber State, Battle’s slam on the winning alley-oop obscured Brown splitting the defense and delivering the perfect lob.
“He makes all the right plays,” Tang said. “That last play against Weber State where he goes left and draws the help from the big and throws the great lob to RaeQuan for the dunk – as a coach, it’s always great to have a point guard like that.”
On Montana State’s biggest stage of the year, it’s difficult to imagine the Bobcats writing a Cinderella story unless Brown takes the spotlight.
Sprinkle insisted that guarding Nowell will be a team effort – and it will – but the initial responsibility will fall on Brown. If he can survive against Kansas State’s lightning-bolt orchestrator, the Bobcats are unlikely to get blown out. If he can do better than that, Montana State might even have a chance.
Nowell averages over 3.6 turnovers (his assist/turnover ratio was only fourth in the Big 12 despite leading the conference in assists), and had five against West Virginia and six against TCU in K-State’s last two games, both losses.
“I noticed in the two games we lost we had 40 (combined) turnovers, which is unacceptable,” Nowell said. “For us that’s our biggest issue. If we can control that, which I think we are because we want to win so bad, then we’ll be successful.”
On the other end, Brown will have to get Montana State in its offense against the pressure defense of Nowell, who led the Big 12 with 2.4 steals per game and made the conference’s all-defense team.
“They play so fast,” Sprinkle said. “If you turn the ball over, that thing is through the net within two seconds. You know, their point guard is terrific.”
Of course, Sprinkle thinks the same about his point guard. And whatever else happens Friday night, Montana State’s quest for redemption seems likely to come down to the players with the ball in their hands.
“I’m blessed to have one, Coach is blessed to have one at Montana State, where you don’t have to coach the ball,” Tang said. “You can coach the other four guys. That’s just a tremendous blessing at every level in any tournament.”
