Print edition: 
There was a mutual respect from around the Missouri Valley when Wichita State coach Jody Adams introduced her first full recruiting class to the conference in the 2009-2010 season.
Players like Jazimen Gordon, Chynna Turner and Jessica Diamond could run and jump better as freshmen than most upperclassmen, but they were still under-developed on the court.
That season WSU took its lumps on the way to mediocrity. The Shockers lost seven games in conference by double-digits, none worse than the 89-48 thumping handed down by Creighton.
“I can still remember watching tape on them and seeing them play and thinking, ‘They sure are athletic, but they’re not basketball players yet,’” Creighton coach Jim Flanery said.
Consider Flanery, as well as the rest of the Valley, a believer in the Shockers this season. WSU has won its first seven conference games for the first time in program history, as well as tied the longest win streak of 10.
The Shockers’ rise wasn’t completely unseen. The coaches picked them to finish third before the season. But after a 3-5 start to the season, it looked like it would take another year for WSU to turn the corner.
Now Adams, in year four, has the Shockers sitting atop the Valley standings midway through the season, owning a two-game lead over Northern Iowa and Illinois State, who they will host on Friday.
“We found out firsthand how good they are now,” said Flanery, whose Creighton team lost 65-58 on Jan. 8 to that same core players they crushed by 41 two seasons ago. “They were good athletes back then, but now they have become good basketball players. They’re cohesive, they play smarter, they’re more skilled, they play harder and more consistent.”
Adams took over the Wichita State program with the foundation being built around gaining respect from their peers.
Northern Iowa coach Tanya Warren may have delivered the highest praise for the Shockers.
“They remind me of us from a year ago,” said Warren, comparing WSU to the UNI team that finished 17-1 in conference, won the MVC tournament and played in Wichita last spring in the NCAA Tournament. “They have the experience, the leadership and they are on a mission. You could see it in their eyes at the conference tournament last year. You could tell that’s going to be a very, very good team.”
Adams was flattered by the comparison, but did see the similarities taking shape.
“I think with Tanya at UNI, you had a group of players that accepted their roles on that team and were committed to that role day-in and day-out,” Adams said. “They had leadership. They had great inside play. They had a great point guard. Those are the things that I believe that we do have.”
Wichita State has excelled this season with the same core group that was taking beatings two seasons ago. Now, senior Haleigh Lankster and the juniors — Diamond, Gordon and Turner — could all make cases for being named all-conference.
“I think when you mature as a player, you become mentally tougher,” Adams said. “These upperclassmen know what it takes because over the past three years we have competed with the best and we’ve been beaten by the best. There was just inconsistency of maybe not being able to finish a game.”
It might not always be elegant, as it was last week in grinding out victories at Evansville and Southern Illinois, but all Adams cares about is the end result.
“Not every game is going to be pretty, but we were able to finish out those games because we were mature enough to,” she said.
