Candidate Profile: Jerome Tang
After Missouri parted ways with Cuonzo Martin on Friday, athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois is in search of a new basketball coach. Martin's replacement will take over a program that made the NCAA Tournament twice during his tenure, in 2018 and 2021, but went just 12-21 a season ago.
A list of potential replacements for Martin can be found within our most recent hot board. Each day, we'll go a little bit more in depth to break down candidates in whom Missouri has expressed interest.
We start with the mystery man of this search: Baylor assistant coach Jerome Tang. PowerMizzou reported Sunday that Missouri had contacted Tang. Tang is also believed to be a candidate to replace Bruce Weber at Kansas State.
Tang's name likely isn't a familiar one for most casual college basketball fans. The native of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands has spent the entirety of Scott Drew's 19-year tenure at Baylor as an assistant coach for the Bears. Tang currently holds the title of associate head coach for Baylor.
Tang has never been a head coach at the college level, nor has he ever worked anywhere outside of Waco. Tang joined Drew's initial staff in 2003 after 10 seasons as the basketball coach and athletics director at Heritage Christian high school near Houston, Texas. Tang's tenure at Heritage was headlined by one of his players, Cedrick Hensley, scoring 101 points in a single game in 2001.
While Tang lacks college head coaching experience, his appeal would be his ability to bring the Baylor formula to Missouri. Baylor has risen from a crater to become one of the most successful programs in the country under Drew. When Drew and Tang arrived in Waco, the Bears were reeling from the murder of a player by his teammate, which resulted in the resignation of former coach Dave Bliss and prompted an NCAA investigation that turned up several violations. Those off-court issues notwithstanding, Baylor had made just one NCAA Tournament appearance since 1950.
Yet by 2008, Drew and Tang had Baylor back in the top 25 and in the Big Dance. Baylor has been included in 10 of the past 14 NCAA Tournament fields, including consecutive seasons as a No. 1 seed. A season ago, Baylor routed Gonzaga to win the school's first national title.
Only Gonzaga has won more games since the start of the 2019-20 season than Baylor. Had the 2020 NCAA Tournament not been canceled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Baylor would almost certainly be entering its third straight postseason as a No. 1 seed.
Tang and the rest the Baylor staff landed the nation's No. 8 recruiting class in 2021, headlined by five-star forward Kendall Brown, the 12th-rated prospect in the country. Baylor has also found success recruiting the transfer portal in recent seasons. Four of the top six scorers on Baylor's national championship squad came to the school via transfer.
While Tang's lack of head coaching experience could be viewed as a negative, fans don't have to look very far to see evidence that a long-time assistant can succeed as the head man at a high-major program. After spending 20 seasons as an assistant coach under Mark Few at Gonzaga, Tommy Lloyd led Arizona to a Pac-12 championship and No. 1 seed during his first season there.
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