“It’s a Festivus for the rest of us.”

Festivus is the made-up holiday of Frank Costanza to replace Christmas on the television show “Seinfeld.” The celebration included the “airing of grievances,” with Frank declaring, “I got a lotta problems with you people, and now you’re going to hear about it!”

Festivus is celebrated on December 23rd, but I’ve decided to celebrate it today. I’m getting too old to compete in the “feats of strength” portion of Festivus, but I’ve got some grievances to air regarding K-State basketball after the ridiculous loss to Drake last night at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. Now is a good time to do it.

You might think K-State would show up last night with a fire in their belly after not playing for 10 days after a 17-point loss to St. John’s. Instead, the opposite happened. K-State failed to score a point five minutes into the game and fell behind by 20 points. K-State battled back and eventually took a small lead in the second half, but Drake pushed the game to overtime before winning 73 to 70.

After the game, K-State forward Coleman Hawkins, followed by Jerome Tang, took turns basically berating some fans for being too tough on them. Hawkins said this…

“I feel like it’s us versus everybody. I can’t go on my phone without people wishing the worst for me and not just for me but for our team. It devastates me. I just went on my phone and saw someone say, ‘I hope you break your leg,’ That’s the kind of stuff that our team has been dealing with all year. It just affects me so much because I don’t wish that upon my worst enemy. We go out, we practice every day, we play hard, we’re doing the best we can. My message would be it’s us versus everybody and we can control what we can control and all the other stuff. We’ll just have to tune out and lock in the rest of the way come conference play.”

Wishing ill will or injury towards any player is uncalled for, but why is Coleman Hawkins checking his direct messages or mentions on social media right after the game? He should tune that stuff out. Regardless, it was discovered today that the message was likely sent via direct message by some degenerate gambler, not a K-State fan, but at the time Hawkins insinuated it was from a K-State fan.

Hawkins was given a two-million-dollar NIL deal to come and play at K-State. Going to college is hard when you are 18-22 years old. It is mentally and emotionally stressful enough without having the expectations of being the star player on the basketball team and having expectations to be great. Then, throw a load of money into his lap, and fans expect results. Fans inevitably get upset when they do not see production.

Jerome Tang didn’t help matters. Instead of showing anger or frustration at losing the game, Tang made excuse after excuse.

“And you know, congratulations to the Drake team. That’s like, man, they’re super connected. When you have two guys who’ve been in the program for six years, one guy who’s been in the program for five years, another guy who’s been in the program for three years, right. You just have layers of stuff you can do and build on. And so they were hard to guard…”

Of course, anyone who follows college basketball knows that older, experienced teams tend to perform well. Tang has had three years to try to build a program, but instead has a bunch of newcomers and transfers that he is trying to mold into…well, honestly, who knows what? I keep saying they look discombobulated most of the time, but it is true and the best word I can find to use to describe it. Tang continued…

“I should have done a better job at the end of regulation and I definitely should have done a better job at the end of overtime to set our defense and help our guys in those situations.”

Tang took some responsibility here, but then got defensive…

“I got a great group of dudes there. And they are working really, really hard and they’re trying to put into just a few months what, you know, some of the teams have multiple years to do. And you know, you see a lot of this, but for any fans, any people who are reaching out and saying negative things to these guys, man, shame on you. Shame on you.”

Yes, this coaching staff has only had a few months with these players, but whose fault is that? It is Jerome Tang’s fault for losing so many players to the transfer portal and being forced to rebuild the roster from scratch every year. As for the negativity, win some games and all the negativity will go away. If fans are contacting players directly, that is uncalled for, but K-State fans have a right to be frustrated with how this team is performing. And with NIL in play, fans will voice their displeasure louder than ever before. College teams are asking fans to buy tickets, overpay for concessions, pay for parking, travel long distances to games, donate to the University, and on top of that, pay the players, too! What if you bought tickets to watch a professional sports team play, and they passed around a collection plate during the game for you to pay the players with your leftover money? The entire concept and model are insane.

I’ll be honest. It is hard to feel sorry for a college basketball player who is making two million dollars for one basketball season because he is seeing negative comments about his performance. 99 percent of the people watching him play will never make as much money in a year as he is making. There was once a President who said “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” That’s kind of how I feel about it. As I mentioned, nobody should wish ill will or injury upon anybody, but if the players are letting negative comments get to them, it’s time to grow some thicker skin or stay off social media. And maybe start winning. Someone also once said “Winning cures all.”

As for Jerome Tang, maybe show some anger or frustration after you lose instead of making excuses. The die-hard K-State basketball fans would appreciate it.

Can this basketball team make the NCAA tournament? It would be a Festivus miracle if they did.