Picking the Wichita State basketball all-decade team: 13 best Shockers from the 2010s
With its win over Abilene Christian last weekend, the Wichita State men’s basketball team closed out this decade with a 78.9% winning percentage and 280-75 record.
That’s the fifth-most wins in Division I during that 10-year span, which included seven NCAA Tournaments, three NITs, 18 postseason victories, five regular-season conference titles and two conference tournament championships for the Shockers.
From an NIT championship to a Final Four to a record-breaking 35-0 start, Wichita State has won more and experienced more success than any other decade in program history.
When Gregg Marshall decided to leave Winthrop to coach the Shockers before the 2007-08 season, he believed he could have success in Wichita. But the type of success WSU saw in the 2010s? Not even Marshall saw that coming.
“You have to believe in yourself to even become a head coach, so I believed in my abilities because we had quite a deal of success at Winthrop,” Marshall said. “If I didn’t believe we could have been successful here, I never would have come. But I didn’t envision a Final Four and a 35-0 start and 18 postseason wins.
“I’m most proud of the people and not just their accomplishments on the court, but the quality of young men. We’ve had parents and grandparents and mentors for these guys that have really done a great job. It’s important to us not just how they play, but how they conduct themselves off the court.”
To commemorate the most successful decade in Shocker basketball history, The Eagle picked a 13-players all-decade team to represent the success:
The starters
Fred VanVleet
Best season: 11.6 points, 3.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.9 steals and 48% shooting in 2013-14
There’s no question which floor general Marshall would pick to run his all-decade team. No one was more in control of games and clutch than Steady Freddy. He wasn’t afraid of the big moments and it showed, as he played a key role in the Final Four run, the 35-0 start and the NCAA Tournament win over Kansas.
Ron Baker
Best season: 14.7 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.8 blocks, 38% shooting on threes in 2014-15
Baker and VanVleet will be remembered in tandem for helping WSU reach the peak of success this decade. Both players were in tune with each other and played like they already knew what the other was about to do. Baker was a knock-down shooter and a dogged defender, an automatic selection for this team.
Landry Shamet
Best season: 14.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 44% shooting on threes, 49% shooting in 2017-18
Shamet became the go-to guy after the graduation of Baker and VanVleet and excelled in his sophomore season. He helped lead the Shockers within a point of a conference title in their first season in the American, although that season ended with an upset loss to Marshall in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Shamet still deserves a starting spot because of his elite shooting ability, which would only be enhanced by the presence of VanVleet and Baker.
Cleanthony Early
Best season: 16.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 0.8 steals, 0.8 blocks, 48% shooting, 37% three-point shooting in 2013-14
No one this decade got buckets as easily and as frequently as Early in his two years with the Shockers. The prototypical stretch four in the starting lineup, Early would be even more of a force with the shooting gravity of Shamet included on the floor. He was the leading scorer for the Final Four and 35-1 team. Enough said.
Carl Hall
Best season: 12.6 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.7 blocks, 54% shooting in 2012-13
No one this decade exemplified the “Play Angry” attitude better than Hall, an undersized center at 6-foot-8 who still found a way to make a huge impact on both ends. There are bigger centers WSU could go with here to provide the lineup more size, but Hall’s heart and versatility on defense fits better with this group in the starting five.
The bench
Malcolm Armstead
Best season: 10.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.9 steals, 39% shooting in 2012-13
A hero of the Final Four run, Armstead was the steady senior presence the Shockers desperately needed. He was in total control of the offense, brought Fred VanVleet along as a freshman and was always ready to step up and take the big shots in his one season with WSU.
Tekele Cotton
Best season: 10.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, 1.4 steals, 37% shooting on threes, 45% shooting in 2013-14
Strongly considered for the starting lineup because of his incredible defensive ability, Cotton will instead be the shut-down defender off the bench for this team. Cotton specialized in putting the other team’s best offensive player in clamps.
J.T. Durley
Best season: 11.2 points, 4.9 rebounds, 0.5 steals, 0.5 blocks, 48% shooting in 2010-11
He wasn’t part of many of the highlights of the decade, but there’s no doubt Durley helped pave the way for the Shockers’ success that followed. He was the leading scorer on that 2010-11 team his senior year and deserves credit as one of the lone holdovers from the Mark Turgeon era to stick with Marshall.
Markis McDuffie
Best season: 18.2 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 1.0 steals, 41% shooting in 2018-19
No one averaged more points in a single season than McDuffie did his senior year for the Shockers. It’s also probably true no one had to shoulder a bigger load than McDuffie did last season on WSU’s most inexperienced team of the decade. He’ll provide a nice scoring punch off the bench and another stretch-four option.
Shaquille Morris
Best season: 14.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 1.5 blocks, 55% shooting in 2017-18
Another one of Marshall’s success stories at WSU, Morris blossomed his senior year with the Shockers and became a force in WSU’s first season in the American. An engaged Morris was perhaps WSU’s best center of the decade and Marshall loves rotating his centers, so Hall, Morris and Garrett Stutz can form WSU’s best version of the three-headed monster.
Toure’ Murry
Best season: 12.2 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.3 steals, 42% shooting in 2011-12
Murry was the best player on WSU’s early teams in the decade that began the wave of success with the 2012 NIT run. At 6-5, he’s a taller guard who could give this team some flexibility off the bench.
Joe Ragland
Best season: 13.4 points, 2.9 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 50% shooting on threes, 57% shooting in 2011-12
Another two-year player winds up on the team, as Ragland’s senior year was the most accurate three-point shooting season in WSU history. He only took 3.7 attempts per game, but knocked down 50.4% from beyond the arc, which is exactly what he will be doing for this team.
Garrett Stutz
Best season: 13.3 points, 8.0 rebounds, 1.0 blocks, 54% shooting, 82% free throw shooting in 2011-12
One of Marshall’s greatest success stories, Stutz transformed into arguably WSU’s most dominant big man in the Marshall era by his senior year. While the starting lineup is smaller and more athletic, Stutz off the bench gives this team the option to completely change the game by inserting a 7-foot brick wall.
This story was originally published December 31, 2019 at 5:38 AM.
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