Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang watches late in the game from the floor on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

Kansas coach Bill Self said on Monday that he was surprised by the timing of rival Kansas State’s decision to dismiss head coach Jerome Tang, which the school announced on Sunday with six games remaining in the regular season.

“I like Jerome,” Self said. “I hate to see when any coach gets let go. But I also know that it’s big money and it’s big business, and people make decisions based on what is in the best interest of their employer, and the employer is Kansas State University.”

The Wildcats are just 10-15 overall and 1-11 in league play, three years removed from Tang’s trip to the Elite Eight in his first season at the helm. KSU has not been back to the NCAA Tournament since.

Tang finishes with a 71-57 record in less than four seasons leading K-State after he had previously spent two decades as an assistant at Baylor. He went 3-4 against KU, famously telling KSU fans to “expect to win” after beating the Jayhawks for the first time in 2023, and had won three straight against KU at Bramlage Coliseum before KU’s 86-62 rout on Jan. 24.

Associate head coach and former North Florida coach Matthew Driscoll has taken the reins as K-State’s interim head coach. KSU hosts Baylor on Tuesday, and Driscoll will lead the Wildcats into Allen Fieldhouse for KU’s senior day on March 7.

While Tang’s tenure is now at an end, he figures to remain in the news for some time as he and K-State sort out the terms of his firing. Athletic director Gene Taylor said on Sunday that Tang was fired for cause. That sets up a battle over how much of Tang’s reported $18.7 million buyout KSU will actually have to pay.

“There’s language in his contract that addresses certain things that could potentially bring embarrassment,” Taylor told reporters on Sunday. “Basically his comments about the student-athletes and the negative reaction to those comments from a lot of sources, both nationally and locally, is where I thought we needed to make the decision.”

That was a reference to Tang’s widely publicized and extremely brief postgame press conference last Wednesday after KSU got blown out at home by Cincinnati, in which Tang said, “This was embarrassing. These dudes do not deserve to wear this uniform. There will be very few of them in it next year. I’m embarrassed for the university, I’m embarrassed for our fans, our student section. It is just ridiculous. We’ve got practice at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning, and we will get this thing right. I have no answer and no words.”

(The Wildcats went on to lose again at Houston on Saturday, a game for which K-State removed its players’ names from their jerseys and also had players instead of coaches handle the scouting report for the opponent.)

Tang, for his part, said in part in a statement to national media outlets on Sunday, “I am deeply disappointed with the university’s decision and strongly disagree with the characterization of my termination.”

Self said he had a hard time drawing a definitive conclusion on the details of Tang’s circumstances as someone on the outside looking in. But he said he is sure “what they’re hashing out now is how that contract is written” — the same as if KU tried to get rid of him or if he tried to leave KU — and added, “I certainly hope fairness prevails.”

“That’s why you have agents,” Self said, “that’s why you have attorneys that look over contracts, and that’s why you have attorneys from institutions that look over contracts, and you deal with the wording in the contracts. Bottom line.”

K-State will undertake a national search for its next head coach, who will be its sixth during the time Self has been at KU. The last three coaches — Frank Martin, Bruce Weber and Tang — have each reached one Elite Eight, but the Wildcats have not made a Final Four since 1964.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.