WSU notes: Check your cell phones at Eck; Midtgaard pushes through injury

Wichita State baseball players who ignore the cell-phone caddy in the hallway leading down to the Eck Stadium locker room risk the wrath of the Wheel of Mis-Fortune.

No cell phones in the locker room. As players pass by the caddy hanging on the wall, they slip their phone into the pocket labeled with their name.

“While we’re in the locker room, it focuses us on each other more rather than the outside world,” pitcher Willie Schwanke said. “The young guys really learn that are some things that really don’t need to be paid much attention to, especially when you’re out there, because there’s work to get done.”

Pitching coach Mike Steele said he borrowed the idea from Pittsburgh Pirates coordinator of instruction Dave Turgeon, who used it in the lower levels of the minor leagues.

Talk. Learn about the lives of teammates. Work through the tough lessons together. Celebrate good times. Ignore social media.

“We’re not going to have 25 individuals sitting in their locker in their own 25 little bubbles when we’re trying to build a team,” Steele said. “Especially, when things go bad, it’s easy for them to grab a phone and go get distracted. Let’s deflect reality. You have to have some time to deconstruct the bad times that you’re going through if you ever want to learn how to get out of them.”

The caddy, players say, is largely a habit now. That habit is enforced by the wheel, which lurks in a storage room ready to deal out lessons such as pushups, squat thrusts, sprints and burpees.

“When you’re here, you should be here and you shouldn’t be focused on what’s going on in the outside world,” pitcher Connor Lungwitz said. “That will be bigger when it comes to games. Guys won’t be on their phones before a game or after. We’ll be more of a unit.”

Spin the wheel and get ready to work. An infraction by one player means the team pays.

“It happened quite a bit in the fall,” Lungwitz said. “And I don’t know if it’s happened since we got back from Christmas break.”

Good month for Midtgaard — Horsholm 79ers center Asbjorn Midtgaard is healthy and wrapping up January in fine form.

A sprained ankle and illness slowed him earlier in the month. January is also an important academic period for high school seniors in Denmark. He emerged from those circumstances to play some of his best basketball recently.

“I am good now, maybe better than ever,” he wrote in a text message. I am trying “to do everything I can for the team, one step at a time.”

Midtgaard (6-foot-10, 242 pounds) signed with WSU in November. He averages 8.6 points and 7.2 rebounds for the 79ers, a Danish club. A week ago, he scored 14 points and grabbed nine rebounds in a loss to the Bakken Bears.

In his past three games, he averages 13 points and is 16 of 25 from the field. Injuries to other players put more of a burden on Midtgaard in recent games.

“(Asbjorn) is continually working on getting more speed into his game, knowing that this is physically his limiting factor for his development,” coach Jorgen de Linde Lind wrote in a text message. “Playing time has been changing a lot, but (in an earlier game against Bakken), he showed some of his real potential. He impressed everyone with his young age doing so well against a very good team.”

Worth noting — Wichita State’s Sidney Hirsch ran a time of 16 minutes, 50.58 seconds in the 5,000 meters at the Washington Invitational in Seattle. It is an indoor personal record for her and the fifth-fastest time in school history. … ESPNU will show Wichita State’s April 4 baseball game against Oklahoma State at Eck Stadium. ESPNU chose Indiana State at Dallas Baptist on April 23 as its other Missouri Valley Conference game for its schedule.

This story was originally published January 28, 2017 at 1:46 PM with the headline "WSU notes: Check your cell phones at Eck; Midtgaard pushes through injury."