Heaven on hardwood

The days of heaven for basketball fans have arrived, and with them a time for Kansas to shine at an all-American game whose ancestry is wedded to the state’s history.

Though Thursday’s games already began to bust brackets, the first chance for Wichita State University men’s coach Gregg Marshall and his Shockers to answer the NCAA’s disrespectful No. 7 seed will come against Indiana at 1:45 p.m. Friday in Omaha. On the same court, the No. 2 seed University of Kansas Jayhawks will play New Mexico State at 11:15 a.m., in KU’s 26th-straight trip to the tournament.

Should both games go the Sunflower State’s way, Sunday will bring the WSU-KU matchup of many Kansans’ dreams. The game might not live up to the drama of the 1981 Battle of New Orleans, the last time the Shockers and Jayhawks faced off in the NCAA Tournament. But it’s worth wishing for, even though it would send one Kansas team home.

And the success story that is the WSU women’s basketball team – three-time conference and tournament champs – starts its postseason action at about 6:30 p.m. Friday in Berkeley, Calif., where the No. 13 Shockers play California. Coach Jody Adams calls this team the best product she has put out at WSU, and a starting five including Missouri Valley Player of the Year Alex Harden and fellow seniors Kelsey Jacobs and Jamillah Bonner justify high expectations. Meanwhile, the Kansas State women’s team qualified for the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.

Congratulations already are due three local high school teams for winning championship trophies this season: The Wichita South girls claimed a third-straight Class 6A state title Saturday, while the Wichita East boys won it all in 6A for the first time since 2005 and the Wichita Heights boys claimed their first 5A state trophy since 2012. All three did their hometown proud, whetting local fans’ appetites for more victories to come in March Madness.

At Sunday’s news conference, WSU’s Marshall laid out the tournament challenge for his Shockers in plain language that the father of the game and onetime KU coach James Naismith might have appreciated: “So we have to make shots, we have to execute, we have to rebound and defend. Hopefully get a call here and there. Have the stars align a little bit. We’ll see what happens.”

The rest of Kansas will be watching and cheering.

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

This story was originally published March 19, 2015 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Heaven on hardwood."