Back to dancing: Wichita State men’s basketball in First Four game in NCAA Tournament
A nerve-wracking 24 hours ended in exhilaration for the Wichita State men’s basketball team on Sunday night when it learned it will be dancing in Indiana this March Madness.
The Shockers (16-5) received a No. 11 seed in the West Regional and were one of the final four at-large teams included in the 68-team NCAA Tournament field, meaning they will play fellow No. 11 seed Drake in a play-in game at 5:27 Thursday night at Purdue’s Mackey Arena in West Lafayette. That game will be broadcast on TBS.
The winner of that game will face No. 6 seed USC in a first-round game at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. That game will air on TNT.
WSU season ticket holders had an initial opportunity to purchase tickets through the WSU ticket office. For fans still interested, tickets for Thursday’s game were available on the resale market for as cheap as $104.
If Wichita State reaches the second round, it would play either No. 3 seed Kansas or No. 14 seed Eastern Washington on Monday at a time and location to be announced. Gonzaga is the No. 1 seed in the West.
“SHOCKER NATION WE AREN’T DONE!!!” WSU coach Isaac Brown tweeted after the selection. “Time for this team to show their resiliency and make a run! Our dancing shoes are polished and ready to go, see you Thursday! Thank you for always supporting us, best fan base in the COUNTRY!”
WSU has now qualified for eight of the last nine NCAA Tournaments and for the second time are being sent to play a First Four game. The last time the Shockers were a No. 11 seed in a play-in game, they trounced Vanderbilt, 70-50, and Arizona, 65-55, before running out of steam in a second-round loss to Miami, 65-57, in the 2016 NCAA Tournament.
WSU’s inclusion into the 2021 field seemed like a coin flip to bracketologists following a 60-59 loss to Cincinnati in the semifinals of the American Athletic Conference tournament on Saturday. It counted as a Quad 3 loss, which sullied what had been a squeaky-clean resume for WSU.
The Shockers presented one of the most unique team sheets in the country. Their 16-5 record only included two wins against the top-two quadrants and their close wins seemingly hurt them in predictive measures like KenPom (No. 74), ESPN’s BPI (No. 96) and Sagarin rating (No. 64). But WSU fared very well in resume-based metrics like KPI (No. 33) and strength of record (No. 42).
In the end, the 10-person selection committee comprised of conference commissioners and athletic directors were likely swayed by WSU winning the outright AAC regular-season championship, which included a top-10 win over Houston. Those two chips were things that bubble teams like that were ultimately left out of the field did not possess.
In his first season as head coach, Isaac Brown led WSU to its first AAC regular-season title and a return to the NCAA Tournament in a season that began with the Shockers being picked to finish seventh in conference. The Shockers have a star player in guard Tyson Etienne (17.0 points) and a knack for winning close games (9-2 in games decided by five points or less).
Following its loss on Saturday, WSU remained in Fort Worth to watch the Selection Show on Sunday. From there, the Shockers will fly from the Dallas-Fort Worth area straight to Indianapolis. Junior guard Trevin Wade and freshman forward Jaden Seymour, who missed the AAC tournament due to COVID-19 protocol, will travel separately from Wichita to rejoin the team in Indianapolis for this week.
All NCAA Tournament teams will now have a 48-hour window to inform the NCAA if they are unable to field a team with at least five healthy players for this week’s games. If a team drops out before Tuesday at 5 p.m. Central, then a team will replace them with their same seed in the NCAA Tournament. If a team drops out after that Tuesday deadline, then the team will have to forfeit and and their opponent will automatically advance in the bracket.
Teams are being required to produce seven consecutive days of negative test results in order to play in Indianapolis. The requirement includes every member of a school’s allotted 34-person travel party. Teams can elect to travel with a significantly smaller group should some members of the party be ruled out by positive tests or contact tracing.
This story was originally published March 14, 2021 at 5:15 PM.
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