Wichita State’s Tekele Cotton ready for an MVC encore

The man who took the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament by storm last season sat in the back of Wichita State’s locker room on Thursday at the Scottrade Center, joking with teammate Zach Bush and bobbing his head to music by Rich Homie Quan.

If Tekele Cotton seems relaxed, it’s only because he’s done this before. At a very high level.

And the individual stuff? Not really the memory he took from last season, when the Shockers improved to 34-0 and won the MVC Tournament for the first time since 1987 and Cotton was chosen the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

“What I remember the most from last year is just celebrating, being up on the stage taking selfies and taking pics with each other and accepting the award for winning the tournament,” Cotton said. “All of us, though, not just the award I got.”

Cotton has piled up awards in his career with the Shockers — he was named the MVC’s Defensive Player of the Year for the second consecutive year on Wednesday and is a two-time second-team All-MVC pick — but last season’s tournament hardware may have been the most surprising.

In three blowout wins over Evansville, Missouri State and Indiana State in the championship game, Cotton averaged 14.6 points and hit 11 three-pointers, including four against the Sycamores. And he played his usual, stifling defense to no one’s surprise.

“He’s always in your pocket,” WSU guard Ron Baker said. “There’s hardly any separation when he’s guarding you.”

Cotton and his teammates were vocal about getting him more involved on offense before the season began but an injured finger has hampered his shooting and his scoring average is down to 9.4 points from 10.3 as a junior. He’s shooting 29.9 percent from three-point range, down from last season’s 37.1 percent.

“I’m not really going to talk too much about the finger, because I can play through it,” Cotton said. “It hurts, but I just play through it.”

That’s not to say his offense has been lacking, necessarily. He’s scored in double digits in 17 of 30 games and has been invaluable handling the ball as the Shockers’ presumptive backup point guards failed to develop in Ria’n Holland and Corey Henderson.

Cotton played some point guard in his freshman year, when WSU won the MVC regular-season title and made it to the NCAA Tournament.

“That first year helped because I got a lot of experience (handling the ball) right out of the gate,” Cotton said. “I haven’t played (point guard) very much since then, but I’m definitely comfortable handling the ball. When I do, I’m just trying to stay in our flow of what we have going on.”

Finding a role and doing it well — backup point guard, defensive stopper, high-flier — has always been Cotton’s specialty.

"He accepted his role and he's great at what he does," WSU guard Fred VanVleet said. "He's a laidback guy. He's humble. He's just a genuine good person. When you've got those personalities, taking a back seat to some guys comes natural for him. The challenge for me is to get him out of his mold. I think you saw that this year. He had some really dominant and great performances on both sides of the ball.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2015 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Wichita State’s Tekele Cotton ready for an MVC encore."