‘It does hype me up’: Wichita State-KU basketball game means more to in-state player

For the second straight game, the Wichita State men’s basketball team will head to the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City to take on an in-state rival.

Saturday’s 3 p.m. game between the Shockers and No. 2-ranked Kansas, televised nationally on ESPN2, won’t have the same stakes of the last time the two in-state programs met on the hardwood, but the two in-state programs playing each other still matters greatly to the fan bases and those with Sunflower-state ties.

It will be impossible to replicate the intensity of the 2015 NCAA Tournament game played in Omaha, which ended with a 78-65 WSU win, but it is notable that the two in-state teams will face each other in the regular season for the first time in nearly 31 years.

“Being from here, it does hype me up a little bit,” said WSU guard Xavier Bell, a Wichita native. “You don’t want to go out there and under-perform. We want to put on our best show, no matter who it is, whether it’s K-State, KU, Mizzou, whoever. We want to come out with the right mindset to try to get a win for us collectively.”

Much like how WSU agreed to have a third party host its annual game at Intrust Bank Arena with a check cut to its athletic department, the same structure is in place for Saturday’s game. The Greater Kansas City Sports Commission is hosting the game at T-Mobile Center with a guaranteed check of $100,000 being sent WSU’s way, according to the contract obtained by The Eagle.

While KU head coach Bill Self shot down any chance of a home-and-home series beginning between the two in-state teams, playing sporadically in KC in the future could be a possibility.

WSU head coach Paul Mills said he was game for the idea on Thursday, stating his willingness to add as many of the good regional opponents as possible on WSU’s nonconference schedule. WSU’s four-year series with K-State ends next winter, while the four-year series with Mizzou ended this year and games against KU and Southern Illinois were one-year contracts.

“We would try to play Missouri, K-State, Kansas every year and then the Missouri Valley ties are helpful,” Mills said. “It’s something that people are familiar with. Anything regionally. I’m not telling you this will happen, but you’re trying to play Creighton, you’re trying to play schools that are near you. I wish it was as easy as whatever we would like, we would get, but I do understand the value of having games like this. They’re extremely challenging for us, but that’s something that we embrace. So we’ll actually play as many of these games as we can on our schedule.”

Saturday’s challenge is likely to be the tallest order of the season, as WSU hasn’t defeated a team as highly-ranked as KU in the regular season since beating No. 2-ranked Louisville on Feb. 25, 1967.

Preparation for Saturday’s game also hasn’t been an entirely smooth process, as Mills said a handful of WSU’s players had coronavirus or the flu during the holiday break. That caused some travel delays, but Mills said everyone is back in Wichita and practiced on Thursday morning.

“Everybody is out of whatever they need to be out of,” Mills said. “I think by Saturday, we should be fine.”

Defensive issues have popped up for WSU in its last three losses, which Mills has diagnosed as different root causes each time. WSU’s discipline will be put to the test by one of the most potent offenses in the country on Saturday.

KU wing Kevin McCullar is coming off a career-high 34 points and is now being projected as a possible NBA lottery pick. Hunter Dickinson, a 7-foot-2 center, is one of the most skilled big men in college basketball. Dajuan Harris Jr. is the prototypical pass-first point guard to orchestrate the Jayhawk offense and KJ Adams Jr. is the bundle of energy who helps make KU so dynamic.

“They have a lot of versatility,” Mills said. “They have good rebounders, they have good downhill drivers, they have multiple guys who can do a variety of things. So I think their ability to shoot the ball and their versatility with how coach Self uses them really stands out and makes it difficult.”

Helping WSU’s cause are the recent additions of forward Ronnie DeGray III, who made his debut against Southern Illinois, and guard Bijan Cortes, who made his debut against K-State last week.

Welcoming Cortes to the fold is particularly important to WSU, which was regularly playing its starting three guards more than 30 minutes in games. Mills admitted that likely wasn’t sustainable over the course of a season, so working the OU transfer into the rotation can help players like Xavier Bell, Colby Rogers and Harlond Beverly battle fatigue with less of a minutes burden.

But trying to shake off rust and build confidence against teams like Kansas State and Kansas is a difficult task, one that Mills believes will take time for DeGray and Cortes.

“They can sit there and watch film and think that they have an idea, but you have to go out there and you have to experience it,” Mills said. “Coming back and watching the film, you see that winning is in the details. And you can see all of the details that corporately we didn’t do. Some of that is going to come from just being out on the court and experiencing it.”

Wichita State vs. No. 2 Kansas basketball preview

Records: WSU 8-4, KU 11-1

When: 3 p.m. Saturday

Where: T-Mobile Center (19,135), Kansas City, Mo.

How to watch: ESPN2 (Mark Neely with Fran Fraschilla)

Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM (Mike Kennedy with Bob Hull)

KenPom says: KU 78, WSU 66

Series history: KU leads 12-3 (2-0 in Kansas City)

Projected starting lineups

Wichita State Shockers (8-4)

Coach: Paul Mills, first season, 8-4

Kansas (11-1)

Coach: Bill Self, 21st season, 576-133