Today in Shockers Sports History: January 26th

[WuShock Reaper]

For the day, the Shockers are:
16 and 11

Regular Season (Games of Interest):
2022 – Beat UCF in Wichita 84-79. Ricky Council IV had a career-high 31 points as Wichita State narrowly defeated Central Florida 84-79 on Wednesday night. Council IV shot 16 for 20 from the line. Morris Udeze had 16 points for Wichita State (10-7, 1-4 American Athletic Conference), which broke its four-game losing streak. Dexter Dennis added 13 points and six rebounds. Tyson Etienne, the Shockers' leading scorer entering the contest at 14.0 points per game, was held to 5 points on 2-of-13 shooting. Wichita State totaled 46 second-half points, a season high for the team.

2013 – (#20) WSU beat Bradley in Wichita 70-39. Once Wichita State got rolling, Bradley was no match for the 20th-ranked Shockers. Nick Wiggins scored 12 points and fueled a 16-0 run in the second half with three 3-pointers as No. 20 Wichita State completed a regular-season sweep of Bradley with a 73-39 victory Saturday night. Jake White added 11 points for the Shockers (19-2, 8-1 Missouri Valley Conference), who won their 19th consecutive home game and ensured themselves of starting the second half of their conference schedule in sole possession of the MVC lead. "The thing that Wichita State is so good at -- probably better than any team in our league -- is when they smell some blood in the water, they hit another level of energy," Bradley coach Geno Ford said. "The crowd is a significant part of it. This is as good of a college atmosphere as you'll play in."

2011 – Won at Southern Illinois in Carbondale, Ill. 74-64. J.T. Durley scored 19 points and Wichita State used a 16-0 run to flip the momentum in beating Southern Illinois 74-64 Wednesday night. Gabe Blair added 18 points, David Kyles scored 13 and Toure Murry had 11 points and seven assists for the Shockers (17-4, 8-2), who took sole possession of second in the Missouri Valley Conference. Southern Illinois turned a 19-18 deficit into a 40-26 lead with 1:46 left in the first half but then went scoreless for 6:35. Wichita State used the 16-0 run, keyed by six points from Durley, to gain a 42-40 advantage with 15:37 to play. The Salukis led just once more, when Seck's jumper made it 47-46. The Shockers won their fifth consecutive conference road game.

1984 – Beat Illinois State in Wichita 68-66

1981 – Beat Indiana State in Wichita 93-59

1978 – Beat (#13) Indiana State in Wichita 74-70 (OT)

1963 – (#8) WSU beat Air Force in Wichita 77-45

1954 – (#16) WSU beat Tulsa in Wichita 65-51

1945 – Beat Phillips in Wichita 53-42

1931 – Won at Phillips in Enid, Okla. 29-26

1922 – Beat Bethel in Wichita 29-21

[shoxlax]

That 2011 team would’ve made some noise in the tournament if allowed.

[WuShock16]

That 2011 team would’ve made some noise in the tournament if allowed.

Oh, the stories that could probably be told. If only someone could do a documentary on that.

[shoxlax]

Oh, the stories that could probably be told. If only someone could do a documentary on that.

I know just the dude.

[Kel Varnsen]

Oh, the stories that could probably be told. If only someone could do a documentary on that.

Well, it's not a documentary, but that would fill in some great color to this story...back in 2017, I wrote about 3K words about that team in particular.

The Team That Started It All: The 2010-2011 Wichita State Shockers

Just as no climax of a great story is complete without the build-up it takes to get there, no story of the present-day Wichita State juggernaut is complete without telling the tale of the coach, the teams and the players who took the program to a level where they could pass the torch to even more talented players. But to tell the story completely, you’d have to go back to before most people in Wichita had even heard of Gregg Marshall.

Head Coach Mark Turgeon’s team made that all-to-familiar Sweet Sixteen run in 2005-06, giving every Shocker fan a glimpse of what they have always known was possible here at 21st and Hillside. But just as quickly as the 2006-07 team got off to a blistering start, beating Syracuse and LSU on the road, they fell off the rails even quicker.

Shocker fans were riding so high following the NCAA tournament run and a successful non-conference slate which, despite late losses to New Mexico and Southern California, still had supporters feeling optimistic about the present and future of Shocker Basketball. You probably know the rest. The team reportedly dealt with a high amount of internal strife, and went 8-10 in the Valley that year, failing to return to the Big Dance. Turgeon departed for Texas A&M after the season was over.

With some shoes to fill, then-Athletic Director Jim Schaus made the most poignant move in program history, hiring a highly-successful coach out of Winthrop named Gregg Marshall, who had been highly successful. But he was dealt a tough hand. The 2007-08 version of the Shockers dealt with the departure of seniors Kyle Wilson, Ryan Martin and Karon Bradley, as well as the transfer of dynamic junior guard Sean Ogirri.

While the returns of seniors PJ Cousinard, Phillip Thomasson and Matt Brauer gave some hope, that hope dissipated with Brauer’s concussion problems and losses to, for lack of a better term, awful teams like Monmouth and UMKC during non-conference play. The Shockers were a team in transition, but as Marshall so eloquently describes situations like these in the 2013 Final Four DVD, “the cavalry was arriving.”

It Had To Start Somewhere

If you look at each one of Marshall’s teams, especially in his first four or five years, you notice a consistent improvement, each season better than the last. The 2007-08 team probably takes its place on the lowest rung of Marshall’s teams in terms of wins and losses (That team won four games in conference play. FOUR GAMES!). The 2008-09 team, while similar statistically, managed to get to .500 thanks in large part to the recruiting class that would later be known as the spark which helped turn the program around. The team reached post-season play for the first time since 2006, playing in the newly-contrived College Basketball Invitational. It was essentially like kissing your sister, but hey, it was better than nothing and gave Shocker fans two more home games, in which they defeated Buffalo and fell to Stanford in the following game.

The first big jump came in 2009-10. As the plot below shows, the team finished the season greatly improved on both sides of the ball. The transformative 2008 recruiting class led by Toure Murry, David Kyles and Garrett Stutz was showing great strides. Point guard Clevin Hannah had blossomed into a sharpshooter, accumulating 42.5% and 90.4% clips from the three point and free throw lines, respectively. Role players Graham Hatch, Gabe Blair and Aaron Ellis took a step forward as well.

Marshall’s squad had finally managed to make it to Sunday at the Valley tournament in St. Louis, which had previously been all too elusive for WSU, to face the Northern Iowa Panthers. As the Shockers built a 39-33 lead going into the under-16 TV timeout, the anticipation that the Shockers could get back to the NCAA tournament was, as a prominent former member of the Wichita media might put it, palpable. But a 23-3 second half UNI run (which also saw WSU score all of one point for a ten minute stretch) put the nail in the coffin for that Shocker team’s NCAA tournament hopes. Watching UNI take down 1-seed Kansas, a team Shocker fans desperately wanted a shot at, poured a little salt in the wound as WSU faltered in the first round of the NIT to Nevada and future NBA player Luke Babbitt. But visible progress was being made. It was evident Gregg Marshall had something special in the works.

MarshallKenPom.jpg

The Heroes Wichita Needed

Which brings us to the 2010-11 team.

They returned every major contributor from the previous season except for Clevin Hannah. While the talent level certainly wasn’t as high as it has been during the Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker era, there were plenty of reasons to be excited. Toure Murry was a stalwart on defense, capable of guarding talented wings and getting to the basket on the other side of the floor. David Kyles, after shooting a combined 31.5% from long range in his freshman and sophomore campaigns, switched bodies with Stephen Curry for the first seven games of the 2010-11 campaign and shot an astounding 25 of 41 from three-point range. Graham Hatch returned for his senior campaign. His mold was that of a quintessential “3 and D” player. A solid defender who could guard bigger players, he also shot nearly 45% from three-point range that season.

Garrett Stutz, for his athletic deficiencies, was seven feet tall and incredibly skilled around the basket. JT Durley, whose name adorns the annual Gregg Marshall Doghouse Award (and that of which Shaq Morris has been the recipient two years running), was a skilled power forward who was an absolute force when he wanted to be.
Gabe Blair was a high energy guy who could come off the bench and provide the team with valuable minutes, grab rebounds and play good defense. Then there’s Aaron Ellis, a homeless man’s Kevin Garnett, who today would drive analytics people crazy because he seemingly only took mid-range jumpers. But he still shot 50% from two-point range. Towards the end of the Tulsa game that season, WSU needed a bucket. During a scramble, the ball was passed to Aaron Ellis just beyond the left block, about six or so feet out. He responds by taking (and making) a jumper instead of a layup, and didn’t use the backboard.

They added Joe Ragland and Ben Smith. Ragland readily grabbed the proverbial point guard torch passed to him by Clevin Hannah. A good ball handler who would really find his stroke from deep the following season, Ragland was a great fit for the personnel Marshall had on his bench. Smith, much like Graham Hatch, was a gifted three point shooter who could also be called upon to defend an opposing team’s star player.

One of the things Wichita State fans love about Gregg Marshall is the fact that they can see so much of themselves and the community as a whole in his teams. That blue-collar mentality made them so fun to watch. They moved the ball well. They were unselfish. They did the dirty work, hustling for loose balls and offensive rebounds. They never gave up. Five of their six losses were by single digits, with the lone exception coming in a 14 point loss at San Diego State, a team which finished the season ranked seventh in KenPom.

The Season

Following a drubbing of Texas Southern on opening night, the Shocks departed for Hawaii and the Maui Invitational where they faced eventual the eventual national champions Connecticut, led by “Cardiac” Kemba Walker. After a game that consisted mostly of back-and-forth competition, WSU led 60-51 at just past the halfway point in the second half. Unfortunately, the Shockers couldn’t quite muster up enough offense against the Huskies, falling 83-79.

For as many successes as recent seasons have delivered, it’s important to note that so many previous times, Wichita State had seemed on the precipice of a breakthrough in a marquee game or in reaching the Big Dance. That was no more evident than over the course of the 2011 regular season.
Despite the disappointment, Marshall’s squad entered Valley play at a solid 9-2. They had defeated a strong Tulsa outfit in the inaugural Intrust Bank Arena contest, an exciting closing act for the non-conference portion of the schedule.

Their first conference loss came at home to a Missouri State team featuring its strongest lineup in recent history. Losses at home to less-than-stellar teams Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa would serve to create a tight race for the Valley title. The Shockers were neck-and-neck with Missouri State atop the league standings heading into the last two games of the regular season, the last of which would pit both squads against each other for the conference title.

But first, the Shockers had to get by Creighton in the penultimate regular season matchup of the year. Creighton didn’t have a great year, but players like Doug McDermott would be instrumental in driving the Bluejays to three consecutive first-weekend exits at the NCAA Tournament, beginning the following year. Both teams went at each other in a virtual stalemate until the last minute, when the game was tied at 65 and Doug McDermott missed the front end of a one-and-one with 33 seconds remaining. As time ticked down, Joe Ragland managed to evade a trap on the baseline and get a pass to Aaron Ellis, who scored on a mid-range bank shot with 1.5 seconds remaining. The Shockers won, 67-65.

The Shockers got off to a slow start, trailing 32-21 at halftime. It was one of those games where one team gets off to a sizable lead, and while the opposing team keeps chipping away, they never can quite catch up. But Gregg Marshall-coached teams are nothing if not resilient, and clawed their way to within striking distance. David Kyles hit four of his five three pointers in the final five minutes of play, and with 1:24 to play, Missouri State held the slightest of advantages at 65-64. But an Adam Leonard three-pointer with 52 seconds to play put the final nail in the coffin for Wichita State. The Missouri State Bears were Missouri Valley champions and the Shockers’ at-large hopes for the NCAA Tournament had taken a huge hit.

(This is also your annual reminder that WSU was two games away – this Missouri State game and the Creighton game in 2013 – from six straight Valley regular season titles. But hey, horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear bombs, right?)

From there, the Shockers traveled to St. Louis for the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament the following weekend, and hoped to exorcise demons from the Scotttrade Center, which has become a house of horrors for teams from 21st and Hillside. After defeating Bradley handily in the first round 70-54, the Shockers’ offense was stifled by Indiana State on Saturday, falling 61-54. The loss guaranteed that Wichita State would not be making it to the Big Dance that year. One week and one day later, it was announced that the Shockers would be in the 32-team National Invitation Tournament. Their first game, they would host a decent Nebraska Cornhusker team which had beaten highly-ranked Texas in their final year in the Big 12 Conference.

The Shockers came out and absolutely blew the doors off of Nebraska. They scored the first ten points of the game and never looked back. The crowd responded in kind by cheering so loudly they nearly broke the sound barrier. ESPN announcers Mike Patrick and Dan Dakich made note of it during the game. Early in the first half as the rout was on, Patrick remarked “You’d think it was the Final Four, not the First Round of the NIT.”

The final score ended at 76-49 in favor of the Shockers, and it didn’t even seem that close. Patrick chose words like “beatdown,” “bury” and “manhandling” to describe the game, and he was spot on. The only redeeming quality for Husker fans was that then-Nebraska Athletic Director and Hall of Fame coach Tom Osborne was present. The line to greet him at halftime could have stretched to Braeburn Golf Course (pour one out for Braeburn).

“I don’t think it’s been a lack of effort on Nebraska’s part, I just think Wichita State’s been a lot better,” – Mike Patrick, ESPN play-by-play announcer

Then came a road test on a Sunday morning at Virginia Tech, coached by now-ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg. The game was a fight all the way, with both teams trading punches the entire game. Virginia Tech held a slim lead in the first half, only to have it erased. Wichita State did the same in the second half. Virginia Tech held a slim 69-66 lead with a minute remaining, but JT Durley hit a nice 3-pointer with 47 seconds remaining to tie the game at 69 and send it to overtime. A Joe Ragland floater in the lane with 2.6 seconds left in overtime put Wichita State ahead for good. Only one game stood between them and a trip to Madison Square Garden for the NIT Final Four.

The College of Charleston Cougars came to town after victories over opponents that were, let’s say, of a lower caliber than the teams Wichita State had ousted. They defeated Vermont and Cleveland State, but still possessed high quality players and future NBA player Andrew Goudelock, a shooter capable of catching fire as quickly as the Human Torch. This game was much more highly-contested, at least in the first half, as teams traded blows for the first ten to fifteen minutes.

The second-most memorable highlight from that game was the show Goudelock and Charleston put on in the last ten minutes of the game. They scored 35 points, and Goudelock, according to Shocker basketball lore, was hitting shots from the (old) WuShock logo. That hot streak, of course, was made all the more palatable to Shocker fans due to the result.

Over the past two Selection Sundays, there has been a collective apprehension, if not nervousness, in anticipation of the inclusion and seeding of Wichita State for Shocker fans. The thought of going to the NIT with players like Baker and VanVleet in 2016 was enough to make Shocker fans experience a conniption fit. But that wasn’t the case back in 2011. The mere thought of being in a position to make it to the NIT Final Four in New York City was a tantalizing one. The Cohen era, the Smithson era and the end of the Turgeon era all served to whet the competitive appetite of a fanbase that was already a powder keg if there ever was one.

In New York City, future Splash Brother Klay Thompson and the Washington State Cougars awaited in the NIT Semifinal matchup. Reports do indicate that Steph Curry was not also on that team to take pressure off Thompson, however, and Thompson struggled to get his offense going, picking up three early fouls and finishing with only six points and 1 of 10 shooting. Garrett Stutz notched a career high 24 points and the Shockers rolled to victory 75-44.

The NIT Championship game against Alabama was a big enough draw that around 3,000 fans filed in Charles Koch Arena to watch it on the video board, which at the time was not even high-definition at that time (How did fans ever survive?). The Crimson Tide also boasted a future NBA player, JaMychal Green, who is currently with the Memphis Grizzlies.

This matchup was much different from the Washington State drubbing a couple of nights earlier. Alabama challenged Wichita State with its length and athleticism, taking a 41-40 lead with around fifteen minutes remaining. The Shockers promptly went on an 8-0 run and would not look back. With the lead holding steady at around 5 to 9 points a little while after, Wichita State needed to put the nail in the coffin or the last few minutes would get nerve-racking. Thankfully, Tournament MVP Graham Hatch hit two monster three-pointers down the stretch, and he and JT Durley both contributed 12 points on the evening.

When the final buzzer sounded, all of Shocker Nation knew this team had accomplished something special. No, it wasn’t the NCAA Tournament, but the squad finished the season with a championship and gave the college basketball world warning that Gregg Marshall might have just woken a sleeping giant. It built on the previous season, which ended in a home NIT loss to Nevada. It gave fans another taste of the recent successes provided by Mark Turgeon and his staff, and would prove to be another galvanizing moment for the Wichita State fanbase.

Everything is Different Now

In 2017, things are much different. The Shockers have reached the NCAA Tournament in six consecutive seasons, with no signs of slowing down. Wichita State’s athletic programs are set to join the American Athletic Conference that features historically great basketball programs such as Connecticut, Cincinnati, Memphis, Houston and others. It seems every time prognosticators assert that Wichita State Men’s Basketball has reached its peak or lost seemingly irreplaceable players, Gregg Marshall and his staff manage to prove them wrong. The conversation in Wichita, the state of Kansas and beyond has seismically shifted, from “Do you think Wichita State will make the tournament this year” to “Does Wichita State have a chance to make another Final Four or win a National Championship with Gregg Marshall at the helm?”.

As such, it’s always helpful to look back and reflect on every struggle and hardship this program went through to get where it is now. The great philosopher Curtis Jackson once quipped, “Sunny days wouldn’t be special, if it wasn’t for rain; joy wouldn’t feel so good, if it wasn’t for pain.”

There’s no telling what the next five to ten seasons and beyond could bring for the Shocker Men’s Basketball program. But it wasn’t built overnight, and Wichita State University, the City of Wichita and south central Kansas owes a great debt of gratitude to Gregg Marshall, his coaching staff, the players and everyone else who helped rebuild and the program. In the meantime, enjoy the ride.

[Kel Varnsen]

Oh, the stories that could probably be told. If only someone could do a documentary on that.

One of my favorite ones of all-time heard secondhand was a WSU player at a team dinner the season or two before this asking a waitress if he could "get that booty in a box to-go."

[Atxshoxfan]

One of my favorite ones of all-time heard secondhand was a WSU player at a team dinner the season or two before this asking a waitress if he could "get that booty in a box to-go."

Better not say that today. Could put you in a sexual harassment case.
How do young guys pick up chicks these days?