The NIL Dilema

K-State’s season ended with a 70-56 loss to Baylor on Wednesday night in Kansas City, but the game was boring compared to the post-game audio that came out of the Wildcats’ locker room. 

K-State star Coleman Hawkins opened up through tears about the pain of not meeting lofty expectations this season and the stress of being a marked man on social media after his $2 million NIL deal became public. 

This is a complicated and fascinating topic to unwind. 

The replies to that tweet show a barrage of people unwilling to extend any empathy to Hawkins because of his paycheck. On one hand, they have a point. With great power comes great responsibility, and in 2025, that means plenty of social media criticism. 

But Hawkins is the wrong target here. As somebody who had the pleasure (misfortune?) of watching the entire K-State basketball season, he is at or near the bottom of the list of reasons why the team underachieved. 

His numbers were right in the ballpark of what he did the previous two seasons at Illinois, and he was playing with a considerably worse team in Manhattan. Hawkins is a force multiplier who is at his best when he’s helping to distribute and space the floor for talented teammates, not somebody who will score 25 every night to carry a team offensively. 

He did what he does, but he needed more help.

Along the way, he carried himself professionally at nearly every turn. 

When the Wildcats started the season 7-10, he was one of only two players who consistently gave a professional effort while the rest of the roster was flailing around them. 

When the season appeared dead in the water, he made it a point to publicly endorse the team and try to rally the troops, which helped spark a miraculous six-game winning streak through the teeth of K-State’s Big 12 schedule. 

He fractured his tibia with three weeks left in a season that appeared unlikely to end in the NCAA tournament, and instead of packing it in and preparing for the NBA draft, he rushed back to play with a large brace just three weeks later. 

His actions fly in the face of what the anti-NIL crowd says is happening to the highly paid mercenaries of this era. He cared. He played hurt. He stood by a losing team. 

So why was there relentless criticism throughout the season?

K-State Head Coach Jerome Tang hit on a huge part of it in this interview with Sports Radio 810. 

Hawkins’ biggest enemy might be his agent, who presumably leaked the $2 million NIL number to NBA Insider Shams Charania. 

That put a target on Hawkins’ back long before he even arrived on campus. He became the lightning rod figure to go after when the team struggled because everybody knew about that number. 

One of Hawkins’ teammates made nearly as much money as he did with considerably less production and on-court success but got a fraction of the social media hate that Hawkins did. Why? Because that number never went public. 

I hope someone can instill empathy in the agents working with high-profile college athletes. Keeping those numbers quiet can save their clients a lot of trouble. 

The amount and intensity of the criticism are only going to ramp up in a societal era marked by the proliferation of online sports gambling and people who feel increasingly emboldened to act as cruel as possible behind nameless, faceless accounts.

Hawkins represents yet another part of the complicated relationship between coaches, college athletes, and NIL money. I’m fascinated to see how it continues to evolve. 

What You Need to Know

• Big 12 tournament action is heating up in Kansas City. Kansas-UCF and BYU-Iowa State gave the Big 12 back-to-back wildly entertaining games on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. The Cougars hit a Big 12 tournament record 18(!) three-pointers to win their ninth straight and may have solidified a five-seed with another quad-one victory. Iowa State’s Curtis Jones (31 points) and UCF’s Keyshawn Hall (27 points/11 rebounds) both had incredible games in a losing effort. 

• Full transparency: I’m writing this at around 7:00 Central on Thursday night, so I don’t yet know the results of the final two Thursday Big 12 tourney games. You can keep up with the bracket here. 

• CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd reports that every Big 12 school is opting into revenue sharing next season. Schools can share up to the revenue cap of $20.5 million, and Dodd’s tweet seems to assume that all Big 12 schools will do just that. Think of the $20.5 million as table stakes to be able to at least compete at the highest level of college football and basketball. Some schools with smaller budgets are looking to opt out of revenue sharing and competing at the highest level. 

• The Big 12 will reduce its men’s basketball schedule from 20 games to 18 games next season after complaints from multiple coaches. The move to 20 this season came in response to adding Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah, but it allowed no extra rest during the conference season.

• Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark says he’s in favor of expanding the NCAA tournament to 76 teams, and a decision on expansion could come in the next 90 days. As much as I hate this in general, it would probably be a good thing for the Big 12 and other power four leagues, who would likely add more extra teams to the field than mid-major conferences.

• Yormark also says expansion isn’t on his radar right now, which is to be expected. UConn talks have cooled down, and the ACC settlement means they should enjoy stability for at least the next five or six years.

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