Wichita State, Kansas two wins from meeting in NCAA Tournament (VIDEO)

Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall wasn’t more than 15 minutes removed from finding out his team was headed to Omaha for the NCAA Tournament when he was able to perfectly sum up the upcoming hype around the Shockers’ destination.

He did it thanks to his wife, Lynn.

“Lynn has already had friends text her and say, ‘Well, we weren’t going to be able to go or weren’t going to go, but now we’re going,’ ” Marshall said. “Plans have changed. Hop in the car, take a day or two off of work.”

The Shockers (28-4) are the seventh seed in the Midwest Regional and will face 10-seed Indiana on Friday around 1:45 p.m. in the 18,320-seat CenturyLink Center, home to former Missouri Valley Conference rival Creighton.

The real draw could be a potential game between Wichita State and Kansas in Sunday’s third round, which would be their first NCAA Tournament meeting since the 1981 “Battle of New Orleans” in the Midwest Regional semifinal, a game the Shockers won 66-65.

The schools have met eight times since then – seven KU victories – but they haven’t met since 1993. KU coach Bill Self has said he had no interest in scheduling Wichita State.

With both schools headed to Omaha, it set off a ticket-buying frenzy for fans – all tickets for Omaha at www.ncaa.com/tickets, single sessions and all-session tickets, were already sold out by Sunday evening.

Kansas (26-8) is the second seed and will face No. 15 seed New Mexico State on Friday at 11:15 a.m.

Each of the eight schools headed to Omaha – Wisconsin, Oregon, Oklahoma State and Coastal Carolina are there from the West Regional – receive an allotment of 550 tickets.

The schools distribute those tickets among coaches, players and athletic donors. Players receive four tickets each, and the number of tickets coaches receive is written into their contracts.

“(Omaha) was pretty much the only location we had every (ticket) request in for already, so it kind of helps,” said Russell Wilkins, WSU associate athletic director of ticket operations. “It’s been a crazy couple of hours, though. It’s one of those events where everybody wants a ticket, and the secondary market might end up being the easiest way they can do it.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2015 at 5:06 PM with the headline "Wichita State, Kansas two wins from meeting in NCAA Tournament (VIDEO)."