Markquis Nowell Has Put Kansas State—and Himself—on the Map

The 5’8” guard has exploded in January to help the Wildcats get off to a stunning 4–0 start in the Big 12.

Trae Young. Ja Morant. Markquis Nowell?

The first two guards on that list are NBA All-Stars who put up record-setting numbers in their short college careers. The third is a fifth-year senior point guard on the team picked last in the Big 12 in the preseason, a generously listed 5’8” floor general who had zero Division I offers during his senior year of high school. But after the week Nowell just had for Kansas State, he now belongs in the same sentence as two of the best players on the planet. In two ranked wins over Texas and Baylor last week, Nowell scored more than 65 points and dished out more than 20 assists. The only two other D-I men’s players in the last 10 years to accomplish that in a two-game stretch are Young and Morant.

In a week, Nowell went from afterthought to National Player of the Week. Mr. New York City (as he calls himself on his Twitter and Instagram handles) has become the star of the Little Apple and helped engineer a remarkable turnaround for 15–1 Kansas State under first-year coach Jerome Tang.

Nowell is the prototypical New York City point guard. He’s small but incredibly tough, with a flair for the dramatic and a skill set fine-tuned in outdoor pickup games. A Harlem native, Nowell grew up playing on famous courts in Rucker Park and Dyckman Park, wowing fans with deep shooting range, no-look passes and a tight handle.

“I just learned the grittiness, the flashiness,” Nowell says. “When I throw passes, I feel like I’m in Rucker or Dyckman Park. Every arena I’m in, it feels like a playground to me.”

But early recruiting interest from D-I programs faded away, and Nowell finished an injury-plagued senior season at The Patrick School in New Jersey with no committable offers. Eventually, he got one from Little Rock assistant coach Alfred Jordan (a Harlem native himself), so New York City’s quintessential floor general moved the nearly 1,300 miles to central Arkansas to take his D-I opportunity.

Nowell contributed right away as a freshman on a team that lost 21 games but then blossomed into a star as a sophomore, averaging more than 17 points on a team that won the Sun Belt regular-season title before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the sport that March. He opted out midway through his third season at Little Rock, then hit the transfer portal that spring and landed in Manhattan—just not the one he grew up in. Kansas State gave Nowell a chance to play at the highest level despite his diminutive stature. In fact, this year he’s the only scholarship player in high-major men’s basketball listed at 5'8" or shorter.

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While Nowell had a solid first season for the Wildcats in 2021–22, team success didn’t follow. KSU finished ninth in the Big 12, and coach Bruce Weber was dismissed following the season. K-State quickly hired Tang, a longtime assistant under Scott Drew at Baylor, but that didn’t stop a mass roster exodus. The headline departure was Nowell’s backcourt running mate, Nijel Pack, who eventually committed to Miami and famously signed a two-year, $800,000 NIL deal with LifeWallet and Miami booster John Ruiz. Nowell, however, stayed the course, one of just two Wildcats to remain in Manhattan and commit to playing for Tang.

“I take pride in sticking things out through the hard times and through the good times,” Nowell says. “I knew there would be opportunity for me and the way I play [under Tang].”

Nowell and the Wildcats are off to a 15–1 start and ranked 11th nationally :: Chris Jones/USA TODAY Sports

Nowell had also fallen in love with his new home, even though no one would confuse this Manhattan for the streets of Harlem. He embraced what he called a “family atmosphere” that welcomed him to K-State with open arms. And as one of two scholarship players on the roster when Tang got the job, Nowell had a big role in helping pitch recruits on why they should join the Kansas State family. Tang would bring Nowell and Ismael Massoud to dinners with visiting prospects to try to seal the deal.

“They were able to tell the story of what it was like to live in Manhattan, Kansas, and what the fan base and community was like,” Tang said Monday.

Nowell didn’t like doing it at first, but believes he has “a knack” for recruiting to the place he called “the best school on Earth.” And slowly, a hodgepodge roster loaded with transfers came together.

“In the beginning, you know, I had my doubts,” Nowell says. “We went from having two players to having four players to five players, and then we just started adding on.”

The biggest addition didn’t come until August, when Florida transfer Keyontae Johnson committed to the Wildcats. Johnson hadn’t played in nearly two years after collapsing on the court in December 2020 due to a heart condition, but has returned to his star form since joining Kansas State, averaging 18.4 points and 7.0 rebounds per game. In an unlikely turn, Johnson and Nowell have formed perhaps the sport’s best duo, keying K-State’s remarkable turnaround. An illustration of their chemistry: this incredible alley-oop pass from Nowell to Johnson that served as the exclamation point for a win over Oklahoma State on Tuesday.

😱😱😱

Hey @SportsCenter... it's us again... we have something AWESOME to show you!#KStateMBB x @Keyontae pic.twitter.com/oWMWuW69gM

— K-State Men's Basketball (@KStateMBB) January 11, 2023

KSU’s coming-out party came last week, and it was simultaneous with Nowell’s. Navigating a weak nonconference schedule was one thing, as was an upset home victory over West Virginia to open league play. But Nowell’s 36 points and nine assists lifted Kansas State to a record-setting 116–103 win over then No. 6 Texas, and the guard continued his star turn with 32 points and 14 assists in a road win at then No. 19 Baylor. He then followed that up with 20 points and seven assists in the win over Oklahoma State. And, perhaps most remarkably, Nowell’s impact goes well beyond what he does statistically. In addition to helping seal the deal when recruiting most of this roster, Tang said Nowell now leads by sharing notes on mental preparation with the team in a players-only group chat. He also leads on the floor and has become an extension of his coach in the process.

“It makes coaching so much easier when you don’t have to coach [your point guard] all the time and you can coach the other four guys out there,” Tang said Saturday. “It’s all a credit to him and his heart.”

Nowell has had quite the month, graduating from Kansas State in December, turning 23 a couple of weeks later and now exploding onto the scene in early January in his final year of college basketball. The shortest player in high-major hoops is playing like one of the best guards in the country, and, based on box plus-minus, is having the second-best season by a player listed under 6 feet tall in the last 15 years, trailing only Ty Lawson. Not bad for a guy nobody wanted out of high school, right?

“I’m not the biggest guy out there, nor do I want to be the biggest guy out there,” Nowell says. “I will always be that kid who never had anything, who wanted to be seen and who wanted to go to a high-major program. I still work like I’m that person.”

McKneely had 11 points in Virginia’s Tuesday win over UNC :: Geoff Burke/USA TODAY Sports

Other observations from around college basketball:

• The train is officially off the tracks at Kentucky, which lost as a 20-point home favorite to lowly South Carolina on Tuesday. It remains inconceivable that the Wildcats would pay the massive buyout (reportedly around $40 million) to fire John Calipari, but this type of embarrassment (particularly on the heels of last year’s Saint Peter’s catastrophe) is the type of result that will get people talking. And with one of the few jobs in the country with a checkbook large enough to pay Calipari now open (Texas), the idea of a soft landing in Austin could start sounding more appealing.

• Northwestern coach Chris Collins’s hire of assistant Chris Lowery this summer may go down as one of the savviest staff moves in the country. Lowery helped reengineer a defense that was among the Big Ten’s worst into a top-10 unit in the country, a huge reason the Wildcats are 3–1 in conference play.

• An emerging name to know: Virginia freshman Isaac McKneely. He’s a knockdown three-point shooter with shades of Kyle Guy to his game and has scored in double figures in consecutive outings for the Wildcats. He provides the Hoos with two critical things: bench scoring and elite floor spacing. For a team whose three-point output has been inconsistent, McKneely growing into a key role could push Virginia over the top in the wide-open ACC.

• Saint Mary’s is above Gonzaga in KenPom’s rankings after blowing out Portland by 42 points over the weekend. It’s the first time Gonzaga isn’t the highest-ranked WCC team on the site since early December 2016.

• One of the best mid-major games of the season is Wednesday night, as No. 22 Charleston puts its 15-game winning streak on the line against a UNC Wilmington team that has won 13 straight. Both teams have Cinderella potential, and their coaches, Pat Kelsey at Charleston and Takayo Siddle at UNCW, are names to know moving forward.