Five things to know about Wichita State basketball’s exhibition opener on Tuesday
The Wichita State men’s basketball team starts its 2019-20 season with its lone exhibition game at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Koch Arena against Northeastern State, a Division II team located in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
The game will be available on television to Cox subscribers on Channel 2022, while YurView.com/Kansas.com will live stream the game on its web site. The game will also be broadcast on KEYN, 103.7 FM with Mike Kennedy on play-by-play.
Here are five things to know heading into the first game of the season for the Shockers:
1. The injury bug has come
WSU coach Gregg Marshall revealed on Monday that starting center Jaime Echenique will miss at least a month after fracturing his left, non shooting, hand in Saturday’s scrimmage against Nebraska.
Marshall also said freshman guard Noah Fernandes (foot) is still not close to returning to the court and sophomore center Morris Udeze remained in concussion protocol as of Monday. Although he’s back now, sophomore guard Jamarius Burton also missed practices last week after having five teeth pulled in a wisdom tooth surgery.
Down two centers, expect junior Asbjorn Midtgaard to slide into the starting lineup and an extended role for sophomore Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler as his backup. All four of the healthy freshmen — Grant Sherfield, Tyson Etienne, DeAntoni Gordon and Josaphat Bilau — are also expected to see an uptick in minutes as the key reserves off the bench.
Marshall said on Monday that it is standard practice for WSU to wait until after its exhibition game to start pondering redshirt decisions. He admitted the current injuries could impact the team’s long-term plan with certain players.
“You don’t make these decisions (this early) because of injuries and things that can happen and things that have already happened,” Marshall said.
2. Marshall has a connection with the opposing coach
Marshall has opted toward scheduling exhibition games against contacts from his coaching connections.
This year is no different, as Marshall knows Northeastern State coach Mark Downey well from their time together at Marshall University from 1996-98. They both spent two seasons in Huntington, W.V. with Marshall as the lead assistant and Downey as the director of operations, a partnership that resulted in Marshall University’s top-40 recruiting class in 1997.
“Gregg was always a dreamer and a doer,” Downey said. “He had big dreams and he wasn’t afraid to go chase them. That’s how he got the Winthrop job. I remember him telling us, ‘Hey, if this Winthrop job opens up, I’m going to get it.’ Did we believe him? We didn’t know, this business is so hard to break into. But sure enough, he went down there and sold them on the fact he was going to get it done and wow, did he get it done.
“What Gregg has been really smart about is he didn’t just take any job. He waited and took the job that fit him. I know he had a lot of opportunities to leave Winthrop and I know he’s been courted a lot in Wichita, but he understands Wichita State is the place for him. We saw that in him and we knew big things were ahead of him.”
Marshall was more than happy to invite Northeastern State to play in this year’s exhibition game. Marshall also scheduled Downey’s team, at that time Arkansas Tech, for the first exhibition game of his WSU tenure in 2007.
“I’ve known Mark for a long time,” Marshall said. “He’s a super guy and a very good coach.”
Downey also has extensive ties to Chris Jans, the current New Mexico State coach and former WSU assistant from 2007-14 and then 2015-17. He was an assistant coach under Jans at Independence Community College during the 1998-99 season and then again at Bowling Green during the 2014-15 season.
He also has known WSU assistant coaches Isaac Brown and Lou Gudino for many years on the recruiting trail.
“Gregg has been good to me and we really appreciate him having us and letting us have this opportunity,” Downey said.
3. Despite scrimmage win, Marshall was unhappy with WSU’s performance
To the outsider, Wichita State’s 89-75 victory over Nebraska in a closed scrimmage on Saturday was an impressive result. Marshall said the Shockers led by more than 20 before he started subbing deeper on his bench and the result came without Echenique, who injured his hand earlier in the day.
But Marshall mentioned multiple times on Monday how the win did not translate to good play in his mind.
“They had (Sunday) off, so I will get to show them the film (Monday) and the problems we had against Nebraska,” Marshall said. “And there are many.
“They probably think, ‘We won! We beat Nebraska!’ I think they’ll think a little differently when they see it on video.”
When asked what he thought of the three sophomore guards — Jamarius Burton, Erik Stevenson and Dexter Dennis — Marshall said he was “not pleased at all” with their performances. Stevenson scored 17 points, with four 3-pointers, while Dennis scored 12 and Burton added 10 points and seven rebounds.
With that type of scoring production, it’s likely Marshall was referring to the details that matter just as much to him — defending, rebounding, communicating and set-play execution.
“I’ve been pleased (with them) in fall workouts, but I was not pleased with how they performed against Nebraska for various reasons,” Marshall said.
“There were some glaring issues and they will be pounded over their heads with it (Monday) and shown once again what they need to do.”
4. Here’s what Marshall wants to see from WSU
The opportunity for playing time is there for the 10 healthy scholarship players, assuming Echenique, Udeze and Fernandes all sit out Tuesday’s exhibition.
While those three miss time, that gives other players more opportunity to impress Marshall and carve out a role in November.
“It starts with defending and rebounding and playing hard,” Marshall said. “If they couldn’t put the ball in the basket, make an open shot, drive it hard and get in the lane or drop step and dunk it, then they wouldn’t be here. But playing hard and playing smart and defending and rebounding every time and running the court and sharing the basketball, those are the type of things I’m looking for. I’ve told them that all along.”
After Saturday’s scrimmage against Nebraska, Marshall wasn’t happy with how many boxes WSU checked off that to-do list.
“I’m going to try to keep that as close to the vest as possible, but when you watch us, if you know anything about basketball, they’ll be pretty evident,” Marshall said of WSU’s flaws right now. “I probably know our problems because I see them every day. We’re going to work on them. And every team has problems at this point. We’ve got some issues, but we’ll work on them (Monday) at practice.”
5. Northeastern State’s best player is from Wichita
You can read the full story about Wichita native Caleb Smith’s basketball journey on Kansas.com from my story on Monday. But the basics are that the 6-foot-2 combo guard moved away from Wichita in 2012 and ended up at Northeastern State, where he led in scoring at 16.7 points on 46% shooting and averaged 5.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.0 steals.
For Smith’s senior season, Northeastern State wants to make a jump in Downey’s third year with the program. They went from eight wins to 14 wins last season and return three starters on a team that he thinks can contend for a upper-tier finish in the MIAA.
“Our mindset is ‘let’s go compete,’” Downey said. “Don’t go into this game thinking we’ve just got to survive. Let’s go compete and let’s go execute our stuff and have toughness and do things our way and the way we want to do them. Let’s compete against them and make them sweat somehow. That’s what we’re trying to get out of it.”
Northeastern State played Tulsa in its exhibition last week and fell behind 30-5 after the first 12 minutes in an eventual 95-60 loss. Downey said his team was overwhelmed by Tulsa’s size and depth, something he hopes a more experienced team will handle better on Tuesday.
“We have good depth for our level and for our league, but I don’t know if we have good enough depth against Wichita State,” Downey said. “We played Tulsa in this game last year and we weren’t ready for it. Tulsa was big and physical and athletic and we had a hard time scoring early and we didn’t make shots on top of that. Hopefully we start better this time.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2019 at 7:35 AM.
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