Texas assistant Ulric Maligi joining Jerome Tang’s staff at Kansas State

After spending one season with the Texas Longhorns and two seasons on head coach Chris Beard’s staff with the Texas Tech Red Raiders, assistant Ulric Maligi is leaving to join new Kansas State Wildcats head coach Jerome Tang in Manhattan, first reported by Inside Texas and confirmed by other outlets.

Maligi is known as a strong recruiter, as the 36-year-old assistant was instrumental in assembling Texas Tech’s best recruiting class in school history in 2020, a group that ranked No. 11 nationally and first in the Big 12, according to the 247Sports Composite team rankings. The group also included three transfers, headlined by former Georgetown guard Mac McClung, who led the team in scoring at 15.5 points per game.

Both ESPN and The Athletic recognized Maligi on “40 Under 40” lists of rising stars in college basketball after the 2019-20 season.

An Arlington native who graduated from Howard University, Maligi previously spent three seasons at Texas A&M, where he also had significant recruiting success, after spending a year working under John Lucas as a national scouting director. Maligi’s coaching career started as an assistant at UT-Arlington before stops at Stephen F. Austin, Houston, and SMU. So he has experience working with Larry Brown in addition to his familiarity with Lucas.

Maligi has recruited and/or coached 18 NBA players in his career as an assistant, including Emmanuel Mudiay, Shake Milton and Robert Williams.