K-State came away with a 76-49 win over Washburn in an exhibition game Tuesday night. It was the first we got to see of head coach Jerome Tang’s team, and it was a solid first showing.

They played well in the first half but had some hiccups in the second half. Here are my five takeaways from the game that didn’t matter (only in terms of the team’s record).

1. The team is going to play fast and with high intensity.

The Wildcats have athletes that will speed up offenses leading them to force up bad shots at the end of the shot clock. That also includes Wildcat defenders swarming to the paint when the ball is entered inside.

Tang raved about senior center Baybe Iyiola’s interior defense and it showed during the the exhibition win. Junior forward Nae’qwan Tomlin also played some fantastic defense on the interior and on the perimeter.

The guards played fantastic defense as well with senior Markquis Nowell, senior Desi Sills and sophomore Cam Carter all wreaking havoc.

As for the pace of their offense, they will need to play fast, but not too fast. K-State struggled with turnovers with 19 of them, and they seemed to play rushed at times.

2. The Cats can rotate a lot of guys.

This is something we knew about the team going in, but Tuesday’s game just confirmed it. K-State has a lot of depth.

At forward, we will see Iyiola, Tomlin, as well as junior Ish Massoud, junior David N’Guessan and senior Keyontae Johnson all being rotated. Sophomore Jerrell Colbert came in the middle of the second half and provided quality minutes.

At guard, Nowell, Sills, Carter and senior Tykei Greene all got playing time. True freshmen Dorian Finister and Taj Manning could be redshirted this season, but that hasn’t been decided yet. We saw Finister get some playing time in both halves, and Manning came in at the end of the game.

Their depth will allow Tang to rotate players in the starting lineup as well this season. Don’t expect the starting five for this exhibition game to be the one that is set in stone.

3. Length will help them on the glass and on defense.

K-State has a forward-heavy roster and that will help them defensively with getting blocks inside and disrupting shots.

Their length will also be an advantage on the glass which as an area K-State has struggled in the past few seasons. They outrebounded the Ichabods 54-38.

4. Keyontae is as advertised.

Keyontae Johnson impressed in his first game as a Wildcat. He was able to make some open shots and had no issues playing all his 17 minutes. Keyontae finished with eight points on 75% shooting with six rebounds.

He did not look like a guy who hasn’t played basketball since December of 2020. Tang will likely ease him into action before they can be confident with putting him in for 30+ minutes, which they will likely need out of him in conference play.

5. This season is going to be fun.

There is no doubt that this team is different. Different in playing styles, different in personnel, different in coaching styles, different in being actually fun to watch.

The student section came out with a pretty solid number considering it was an exhibition game on a weeknight (one night after they might have been partying hard in Aggieville for Halloween).

The rest of the stadium had some empty seats, but it would have been a lot emptier if K-State would not have made a coaching change. The fanbase is fully behind this team and it will create a really fun atmosphere in the Octagon of Doom.

More importantly, it will be a team that will get some wins this season and be competitive.