How a viral video reflects the togetherness of basketball's surprise team

NEW YORK --- Jareem Dowling knows the pain. It's a unique, never-ending pain. There's no cure for this kind of pain. It lasts forever and it can be debilitating -- and he experienced it to the most disastrous degree.

About five or six years ago, Dowling's brother committed suicide. He and his brother lived together in Northern Texas, Dowling was working as an assistant coach at North Texas when the tragedy occurred, "I never grieved it properly," he says.

Dowling was born in the Virgin Islands, but was adopted as a boy and his adopted family could see that his brother's suicide was leading him into a deep, dark, disastrous depression. They offered help, but it was "aggressive." With Dowling's consent, his adopted family proceeded to check him into a mental health hospital where he went through rehabilitation that "saved" his life.

The healing process for Dowling included sleeping in a bed that wasn't his, but it might have been the best home he could have asked for. It belonged to Jerome Tang.

Tang is in his first season as the head coach of the K-State basketball program, where he orchestrated a roster that includes just two returning players from last season's team to a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and to the Sweet 16 where on Thursday the Wildcats play No. 7 seeded Michigan State at Madison Square Garden.

Before taking the head coaching position at K-State, though, he spent the previous 19 seasons coaching at Baylor, a manageable drive to North Texas' campus from Waco. While working under Baylor head coach Scott Drew, Tang says one of the largest lessons he learned is servant leadership.

"Him and his wife and his family were around me and sheltering me with love, prayers and I would talk to them every day about the good and the bad and how I was feeling," Dowling recalls of his time living with Tang. "All he would say is ‘How can I help you?’"

A simple question can carry power. It's offering help without putting pressure on the person in need. It lets them know that you're willing to listen -- and that's what loved ones of people who commit suicide need most. Somebody to listen to them cry, somebody to listen to them grieve, somebody to listen to them ask questions that are often unanswerable. It's what Tang did for Dowling -- and it's what K-State's coaching staff attempts to do when they notice something different in a player's behavior at practice, around the facility or the team hotel.

"We have great mental health support on campus and our mental health helpers come around our team every day and we encourage them," Dowling said. "And if I see something from one of my players not looking right, I share it with them and they follow up and it’s unbelievable."

This dynamic has helped K-State's players connect with the first-year coaching staff on a unique level. Every Sunday night before the season started, the players went to a coach's house for a team dinner often cooked by the wives of the team's assistant coaches. Players learned where the bathroom was in the coaches' homes, but, more importantly, they found the drawers with the forks and knives.

"They want to know how you’re feeling on a day-to-day basis," third-team All-American point guard Markquis Nowell said. "They want to know what you’re thinking. So, it’s deeper than basketball being at K-State. That gives players confidence to trust in their game plan, trust in them and want to learn from them because they do a good job of making sure that you are well on and off the court.

Tang frequently shares that he wants his players to learn more about how to be effective men. Good husbands. Good fathers. Tang found similar lessons at Baylor for 19 seasons at Baylor under Drew who brought marriage and parenting experts to meet with the coach's staff. Drew allows his assistants to go see their son's game or their daughter's gymnastics competition. Tang has brought similar strategies to K-State.

"I want our guys to have incredible experiences that have nothing to do with winning and losing," he says. "For them to understand that there's a great life for them after the ball stops bouncing, but they've got to be great men and great husbands and great fathers, and the characteristics that you have to have in order to do those things.

"They’ve seen us love our wives and raise our children and discipline our children, and they’ve seen the whole gamut of what it looks like to be a man of character and someone who loves his wife and how they raise their families. I think more than anything else, my coaching staff is an example of it to them, and hopefully, some of it sinks in as they move forward – and I believe it will."

This strategy has helped K-State develop a togetherness that is impossible to not recognize. It's observed in person-to-person interaction like Tang wrapping his arm around Nowell's neck in the postgame press conference after he exploded in the second half to help K-State beat Kentucky in the Round of 32. It's also there on social media with Dowling walking with K-State legend Michael Beasley early on Wednesday morning before the former No. 2 overall pick went to speak with the team. Within the video, Dowling can be heard calling K-State's director of basketball operations Bailey Bachamp his "sis" and "fam."

The way K-State's basketball staff behaves on social media is unique. Few coaching staff around the country post day-to-day happenings online for fans to share. The way K-State's staff uses social media is similar to that of Colorado's football staff, led by Deion Sanders.

"What people are seeing is a third of who he is," Dowling says of Tang's personality, "People are missing a lot and that's why I try to show them behind-the-scenes stuff on my social media platform."

Personally, for Dowling, his use of social media allows him to stay connected with family that still lives in the Virgin Islands. They can see his day-to-day, or sometimes in Dowling's case, minute-to-minute activities. The Kansas State fanbase loves the inside look of the program. And he's now helped K-State basketball go viral by posting a video of the team's pregame locker room routine.

Before each game, over a loudspeaker, Atlanta rapper Lil Baby's "Low Down" plays, leading to players rapping and clapping along rhythmically to the popular song from Lil Baby's "My Turn" album. The tradition started by happenstance on the first night of the season against UTRGV.

Tang walked into the locker room and started dancing along to the song, swaying back and forth with his hands over his head. Players looked on with puzzled looks of what is coach doing? Dowling looked at him like "he is tripping." But soon, players started to edge him on and a tradition was born.

"They love it and sometimes they get up and dance with each other and dance right next to him. Sometimes I’m in the back imitating him and making the guys laugh. It’s just us being ourselves and that’s not trying to be fraudulent," Dowling said.

For two minutes and 25 seconds before every game, K-State basketball is their most real selves. Everything else in the world doesn't matter. Smiles fill each player and coach's face. It's raw emotions coming to the forefront -- and that's exactly how Kansas State basketball wants it to be all the time.

"We laugh, cry, we joke, we share our ups and downs as men in real life with our players and the guys love it," Dowling said.