Jerome Tang heard boos as soon as he stepped on the court.

Iowa State fans were eagerly waiting to greet the Kansas State men’s basketball coach on Saturday when he returned to Hilton Coliseum for the first time since the Wildcats suspected the Cyclones of spying on their timeout huddles during a defeat last season in this building.

They loudly booed him as he walked onto the floor and didn’t stop until after he shook hands with Iowa State coach TJ Otzelberger.

But they were just getting started. The Wildcats are never popular in any road environment, but they were made out to be villains for this game — an eventual 80-61 upset win.

Iowa State fans came up with several creative ways to have fun with Tang and the Wildcats. One student, who camped out to get a seat in the front row, held up a giant cardboard cell phone as if she was recording everything that was going on at the K-State bench.

Later, when Tang called a timeout to try and halt an early 13-4 run by Iowa State, hundreds of students pulled out their phones and pointed them directly at the K-State huddle as if they were spying the Wildcats.

This type of behavior was to be expected after what happened in this Farmageddon rivalry last season.

That game will long be remembered for the spying accusations that Tang made against Iowa State after the game was over.

Even though it didn’t make much sense for the Cyclones to place team representatives in the stands so they could record the Wildcats as they huddled up during timeouts — and then forward information or video to the Iowa State bench before play resumed — Tang and his coaching staff were concerned that happened during a 78-67 win for the home team. Iowa State later denied the accusations.

Tang tried to downplay what happened last year heading into this game.

“I hadn’t even really thought about it,” Tang said this week.

Iowa State fans clearly did.

Tang, postgame, said he had no problem with how he was treated.

“I don’t expect people on the road to like us,” Tang said. “I have the utmost respect for the Iowa State fans. I’ve said all along that they’re so knowledgeable as fans. They don’t wait for the team to do something good to cheer. They’ll sense when their team needs them, and they’ll start cheering and you can hear it. I have utmost respect for TJ and what he does. Just winning a road game like that was huge for us.”