Markquis Nowell is the heart, soul and foreman of Kansas State’s basketball roster

If Kansas State made souvenir posters to commemorate the remarkable basketball season that Markquis Nowell has delivered for the Wildcats over the past few months, it would include more accolades and job titles than most might expect.

Not only is he the starting point guard for a team that surprisingly won 23 games and earned a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but he is also a third-team All-American and first-team All-Big 12 honoree.

There’s more. Impressive as his play has been on the court, none of his 538 points, 244 assists or countless other highlights truly encapsulate how much Nowell has meant to this team.

He has been its heart, its soul and its foreman.

Before he played his first game for Jerome Tang this year, Nowell helped the Wildcats away from the court as an extension of the coaching staff. Nowell put in so much work building this team’s roster from the ground up that no one would object if Nowell claimed to be K-State’s recruiting coordinator.

When people say this is his team, they mean it literally.

Last spring, when Tang was first getting started as a head coach with the Wildcats, Nowell felt more like an assistant coach than a player. Sure, he spent his days working out and making hundreds of shots in the practice gym, but he spent his nights on the phone contacting recruits and transfers in hopes of selling them on K-State.

“I barely had time for sleep,” Nowell says now. “But it was a fun experience because it was something new and something that I really wanted to be a part of. The coaches can’t play with the players. It’s us, the players, that have to play together. We decide how the locker room is going to be and what kind of team we are going to be. Knowing all that, I wanted to make an impact and help build this team the right away. I did it with joy.”

Tang is grateful that Nowell was all-in.

“He didn’t kind of help,” Tang said. “He helped a ton, probably more than the staff.”

Building a team from scratch

The recruiting class that Nowell helped K-State coaches assemble was impressive.

The Wildcats bid farewell to all but two returning players (junior forward Ismael Massoud and Nowell) last spring and quickly constructed a roster from scratch that had enough talent to make basketball fun again in Manhattan.

Keyontae Johnson transferred in from Florida and quickly took the Big 12 by storm as an all-conference player. Nae’Qwan Tomlin shined after starting out in junior college. Desi Sills and David N’Guessan have proven to be hidden gems. Mississippi State transfer Cam Carter has started every game at shooting guard. Abayomi Iyiola and Tykei Greene are both valuable role players.

None of them knew each other at this time last year, but they have done special things in one season together.

“I knew who I wanted on this team,” Nowell said. “I wanted a bunch of winners. I wanted a bunch of great teammates. But I didn’t do it by myself. Ismael Massoud helped. Coach Tang obviously led the way and all our coaches put in work. It wasn’t just me. But it was fun for all of us to work together as recruiters.”

The newcomers on K-State’s rosters will all tell you that they committed to the Wildcats, at least in part, because they wanted to play alongside Nowell.

“He was a big part of my recruiting process at Kansas State,” Johnson said. “He could shoot and he was a fast point guard. I was just thinking, if I come to this team that is somebody I can pass to and know he was going to score. I could trust him.”

Nowell sold Johnson on the idea of playing for the Wildcats by mapping out their future together during a 45-minute conversation in the front seats of Nowell’s car while Johnson was in town for a recruiting visit.

But he landed many of his current teammates in other ways. Nowell remembers reaching out to them through Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and old-fashioned text messages. Whatever it took.

Varsity Donuts was his go-to restaurant when recruits came into town for visits. But he made Cam Carter, a Louisiana native, feel at home by taking him to Popeyes and talking basketball while they ate fried chicken.

“I just loved his vision for the team,” Carter said. “He told me he didn’t want to rebuild. He wanted to win right away and be one of the best teams in the Big 12 and to play in the NCAA Tournament. I wanted to be a part of that.”

Looking back, Tang jokes that Nowell struggled to stay in shape while attending all of those recruiting dinners.

“He believed in us and helped us recruit as a staff. He is responsible for the whole team,” Tang said. “He went on so many official visit dinners and breakfasts, I thought he gained 20 pounds he ate so many meals. That was extremely valuable.”

Nowell put in so much time and effort as a recruiter that he felt like he made a game-winning three when K-State landed its first recruit of the Tang era – LSU transfer Jerell Colbert.

“I just remember being so happy that someone like him wanted to come and play here with us,” Nowell said. “When he decided to buy in that was a big moment. We could kind of tell this was going to work. From then on, we were locked in.”

Leader of the Wildcats

Nowell stepping up as a lead recruiter helped him earn captain status in the locker room rather quickly. Everyone looked up to him.

That made it easy for him to challenge players at practice and during games. He is the guy who holds everyone else accountable.

Massoud gave credit to Nowell for making a passionate halftime speech that sparked a come-from-behind victory over Iowa State earlier this season.

“He challenged us, some of the big guys and stuff like that,” Massoud said. “He just said we’ve got to do a better job of rebounding and do our job. Everyone has got to do their job and not be worried about doing other people’s job. If everyone locks in on this team, I feel like the sky is the limit. So that is just what we tried to do.”

It has been that way all season for K-State, not just that one game.

The interesting thing about Nowell becoming an unquestioned leader for the Wildcats is that he has not always been known as a great teammate.

Nowell began his college basketball career at Arkansas-Little Rock and decided to quit on his team midway through his junior season in 2021.

The way Nowell explains it, he was tired of playing through difficult COVID protocols and was ready to prove himself on a bigger stage, so he announced his intentions to transfer before his team was done playing that season.

But he was suspended from games for disciplinary reasons that season and UALR head coach Darrell Walker wasn’t exactly sad to see him go.

“That’s the best thing for him, and it’s the best thing for us,” he told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette at the time, “and we are definitely happy to be moving on.”

When Nowell first arrived at K-State some were skeptical he was worthy of a scholarship, given that he is only 5-foot-8 and he left his old team under those circumstances.

But he quickly proved his doubters wrong by earning a spot in the starting lineup alongside Nijel Pack last season and then blossoming on his own in the backcourt this season.

He has been so good in such a short amount of time that a case could be made for his jersey to one day hang from the rafters inside Bramlage Coliseum, even though he started his college career elsewhere.

“I am just grateful that I am here and I have this opportunity,” Nowell said. “Being at Arkansas-Little Rock was needed. It built character inside of me that allowed me to come here and become the player I am today.”

A lasting impression

Tang was enamored with Nowell quickly.

Even before he agreed to leave his life as a Baylor assistant and take over as head coach at K-State he was convinced that Nowell was a stud. He tells stories about watching video of Nowell last year refusing to back down against bigger players and continually plays on both ends of the court.

Tang was in charge of scouting K-State when he was with Baylor, and he often spoke highly of Nowell whenever he prepared the Bears for those games. He immediately targeted Nowell as a player he had to retain when he arrived in Manhattan.

Tang put so much trust in Nowell that he removed more than a few players from his recruiting radar when Nowell and Massoud spoke poorly of them last spring.

“They were the engine that drove this thing,” Tang said. “They knew about some of the guys we were recruiting so we asked their opinion. There were some guys that we brought to the table and I remember one in particular, I won’t say his name, but (Nowell) says, ‘Coach, he isn’t good enough.’ I was like, “All right, bro.’

“We just moved on from him. It’s going to be like that in this program. These guys are going to let us know whether somebody fits our culture or not.”

Nowell is happy to reflect on his time as a recruiter, but now he is turning his attention to more pressing matters, such as leading K-State past No. 13 seed Montana State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday at Greensboro Coliseum.

Now it is time for him to help the Wildcats a playmaking guard instead of an extra assistant coach. But the time he has spent in both roles should help him as the postseason begins. He helped build the K-State roster for exactly this.