Ulric Maligi leaving Kansas State to take job at Texas

Kansas State Associate head coach Ulric Maligi is returning to Austin to serve on Sean Miller’s bench at Texas, multiple sources have confirmed to KSO.

Maligi was one of Jerome Tang’s original hires when coming to Manhattan in 2022. Before coming to K-State, Maligi had many different coaching stops, all in the state of Texas.

K-State plucked him from Chris Beard’s staff at Texas, a place that Maligi had followed Beard after departing from Texas Tech together. Other places that Maligi coached before Kansas State included Texas A&M, SMU and Houston.

When initially added to the staff, Tang was lauded for the hire. Maligi was viewed as one of the up-and-coming assistants in college basketball. After his first season in Manhattan, Maligi earned his second appearance on the “Most Impactful High-Major Assistant Coaches List,” while also having honors for 40 under 40s put out by ESPN and The Athletic.

It makes sense. Dating back to 2015, Maligi had been an assistant on teams that made the NCAA Tournament five times out of a possible seven, and would have been six in eight if not for COVID in 2020.

Things continued to be good when Maligi came to K-State. The Wildcats saw a major change in the game of Markquis Nowell and went to the NCAA Tournament as a three-seed. Charging all the way to the Elite Eight and coming up just shy of a Final Four. But since that moment, the Wildcats are 35-32. Just 17-21 in Big 12 play during the same stretch.

He has earned high praise for his recruiting prowess, and Kansas State landed a top-60 player during his time on staff (David Castillo).

This is the first significant staffing change at K-State since Kevin Sutton left the program. He did that following the Elite Eight run. Sutton took over as technical director of basketball for IMG Academy.

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