In the closing seconds of Kansas State’s narrow 59-54 loss at West Virginia, PJ Haggerty found himself with the ball and a chance to tie the game from beyond the arc. The junior guard pulled up for a three under pressure, contorted his body to draw contact, and watched the shot sail harmlessly off the backboard.
No whistle. No free throws.
Just frustration.
Haggerty immediately turned to the nearest official, arms extended, eyebrows raised-looking for a foul call that never came. From his perspective, the contact warranted a trip to the line. But from the sideline, his head coach saw something else entirely.
“I want him to rise up and shoot the basketball, not worry about the foul,” K-State head coach Jerome Tang said after the game. “He’s a shot maker. Rise up and make the shot.”
That’s a message laced with both belief and challenge. Tang wasn’t dismissing Haggerty’s frustration-he even acknowledged that similar situations have gone against them before. But in that moment, with the game on the line, Tang wanted his guard focused on execution, not officiating.
And the tape backs that up. Haggerty had space for a cleaner look if he had gone straight into his shot. Instead, he hesitated, initiated contact, and turned a potential game-tying opportunity into a low-percentage heave.
It wasn’t the only time in the final moments that Haggerty seemed more intent on drawing contact than finishing the play. Just prior to the three-point attempt, he drove into the lane and tried to finish over a pair of Mountaineer bigs-again appearing to seek out the foul more than the basket.
The result? Another miss, another no-call.
Fox Sports analyst Nick Bahe, calling the game, echoed Tang’s sentiment. “Haggerty has gotten too hyper-focused on drawing the foul,” Bahe said during the broadcast. “Sometimes it’s about getting a good shot off and not seeking out contact.”
That’s a tough adjustment for a player whose game has long been defined by his ability to get to the line. At Tulsa, Haggerty was a free-throw machine-averaging 10 attempts per game and racking up 237 points at the stripe as a sophomore. He followed that with nearly 8 attempts per game at Memphis, where he added another 224 points from the line.
It’s no wonder Tang called Haggerty’s foul-drawing ability his “superpower” earlier this season. But through this campaign with the Wildcats, that superpower has been slightly muted. He’s still getting to the line-a solid 7.3 attempts per game-but that number is trending toward his least productive season at the stripe as a starter.
Part of that is the nature of Big 12 basketball. Defenders in this league are disciplined.
They contest without fouling. They don’t bite on every head fake or lean-in.
And they make you earn your points.
But here’s the twist: Haggerty’s scoring is actually up. He averaged 21.7 points per game at Memphis.
He’s now at 23 with Kansas State. That’s not just a small bump-it’s a sign of growth.
It shows he can still be a high-level scorer even when the whistle isn’t going his way.
And that’s exactly what Tang wants him to embrace. The ability to draw fouls is still a weapon, but it doesn’t have to be the only one in the arsenal. When the game is on the line, sometimes the best move isn’t to hunt contact-it’s to trust your shot.
Haggerty’s a gifted scorer. That much is clear.
Now, the next step in his evolution is learning when to lean into that skillset and when to let it fly. Because in a league like the Big 12, and in moments like the one in Morgantown, there’s no guarantee the whistle will come.
But the shot? That’s always in your hands.