This Wichita State walk-on already has Jay Bilas tweeting him and dreams of being the next Ron Baker

Meet Tate Busse, a high school basketball player in a tiny northwestern Kansas town who already has the attention of ESPN's Jay Bilas and dreams of being the next Ron Baker at Wichita State.

On Wednesday, those dreams became closer to reality for Busse, a 6-foot-2 senior from St. Francis, population less than 1,300 and situated near the Colorado and Nebraska state lines. Busse agreed to be a preferred walk-on for the Wichita State men's basketball team. He said he will likely redshirt during the 2018-19 season.

It's a similar path to the one Baker took at Wichita State as he ascended from a western Kansas walk-on to a Wichita State star to an eventual NBA player. Busse's game doesn't necessarily mirror Baker's, but he does having a scoring pedigree: Busse is St. Francis' all-time leading scorer with more than 1,700 career points and led the state in scoring this season with a 28.2-per-game average.

"Every kid in our part of the world knows the story of Ron Baker," said Cory Busse, Tate's father and the boys basketball coach at St. Francis. "I think you can draw some similarities in that they're both hard-nosed kids. They're really competitive. They're not going to be easily defeated or outworked.

"In five years, a lot of kids coming up will be too young to remember Ron Baker. We're hoping they will look up to Tate Busse and keep it going."

When Tate Busse tweeted out the news on Wednesday afternoon, his post drew a surprise commenter: ESPN's Bilas, who tweeted "Congrats Tate!! Proud of you!!"

So how does Bilas, arguably college basketball's most well-known analyst, know about Busse, who plays for a Class 2A Kansas high school that's closer to Denver than Wichita?

Last summer, Busse attended one of Bilas' skill camps in Oklahoma City and left an impression on the former Duke player. Busse even won the 1-on-1 competition at the camp, which was enough for Bilas to keep tabs on him.

"Tate is a really good athlete and a terrific player," Bilas texted the Wichita Eagle. "Tough, skilled, competitive. He's a great teammate and a hard worker. I was really impressed with him, on and off the floor."

Busse was stunned when the Twitter notification popped up and he saw Bilas' congratulations published to nearly 2 million followers.

"It was really cool," he said. "I was pretty surprised he said that, but it's really cool to hear from someone like that."

It was the culmination of a special day for Busse as he accomplished one of his dreams: following Baker's path to Wichita State.

Baker reached the NBA from Scott City, Kan., which has a population of a little less than 3,900 and was recently declared in the "middle of nowhere" by a Washington Post analysis. St. Francis is a two-hour drive north of Scott City and has less than half of Scott City's population.

Busse draws inspiration from Baker's story.

"Out in our parts of Kansas, everybody talks about him and knows his story," Busse said. "I've been watching him play since I was growing up. It's always been like a dream to get this chance, and now it's really cool that it's finally happening."

Busse is a three-sport standout at St. Francis. He was a Shrine Bowl selection as a football player, the school's all-time leading scorer in basketball and won a pair of state championships at the 1A level on the track and field team's relays.

Cory Busse said that WSU coach Gregg Marshall and assistant Kyle Lindsted, who led the Shockers' recruiting push, were encouraged by Busse's success in three sports.

"Tate has a lot of ability, but he's never been able to focus on just one sport, which is good and bad," Cory Busse said. "But Coach Marshall and coach Lindsted really felt good about him being a three-sport athlete. They liked that he has a lot of experience competing in different sports and winning at all three."

Not yet 18, Busse has yet to fill out his 6-foot-2 frame and is listed at 165 pounds. That's why WSU coaches want him to redshirt his first year with the team and work exclusively with the program's strength and conditioning coach, Kerry Rosenboom. They want him to add the necessary muscle to compete at the Division I level.

But when it comes to his on-court game, Busse is known as a sharpshooter from the outside who can play either guard position. He averaged just under five three-pointers made per game as a senior.

"He's a pure shooter," Cory Busse said. "It doesn't matter if it's 15 feet away or 25 feet away, that ball is going in."

Busse's basketball recruitment never took off, partly because he never had the exposure playing for a team in the AAU circuit. He has only played summer basketball for MAYB teams from Colorado and western Kansas.

He said he is motivated to prove himself at the Division I level, just like his idol before him did.

They might not have the same style of game, but Busse hopes someday to join Baker as a similar success story from western Kansas.

"I'm going to come in and work as hard as I can and hopefully I can pick up a scholarship, if I'm playing good enough after a year or two," Busse said. "I'm just going to work as hard as I can and see what happens."

This story was originally published March 29, 2018 at 11:43 AM with the headline "This Wichita State walk-on already has Jay Bilas tweeting him and dreams of being the next Ron Baker."