Kansas State is expected to hire Belmont’s Casey Alexander as its next men’s basketball coach, sources told ESPN on Thursday night.
Alexander led the Bruins to the Missouri Valley regular-season title this season, winning 26 games before losing in the conference tournament quarterfinals. It was his 10th consecutive season winning at least 20 games.
Hired away from Lipscomb in 2019, Alexander has been at Belmont for seven seasons. In his first season with the Bruins, they won a share of the Ohio Valley regular-season title and then won the conference tournament. They didn’t play in the NCAA tournament, however, after it was canceled due to the pandemic.
Alexander is 166-60 at Belmont and has won three regular-season championships, although the Bruins never played in the NCAA tournament with him at the helm. He also helped transition the program from the Ohio Valley Conference to the Missouri Valley Conference.
Before taking over at Belmont, Alexander spent six seasons at Lipscomb, winning one regular-season title and taking the Bisons to the NCAA tournament in 2018. He was also the head coach at Stetson for two seasons.
At Kansas State, Alexander will replace Jerome Tang, who was fired last month toward the end of his fourth season in charge.
There were only two seniors in Alexander’s nine-man rotation at Belmont this season, and there’s a chance some of the players with remaining eligibility could follow him to Manhattan, Kansas. Sophomores Sam Orme (12.7 points per game) and Drew Scharnowski (10.7) were the most productive of the group.
