Paul Mills ‘invigorated’ for challenge of turning around Wichita State basketball
Given his experience of turnarounds as an assistant at Baylor and as head coach at Oral Roberts, Paul Mills is confident the Wichita State men’s basketball team will be next.
It’s just going to take longer than he anticipated.
“I think all of us as coaches are super optimists and we think we’re going to go in there and, ‘All right, this thing is going to turn pretty quick,’” Mills said recently on his radio show. “But rebuilds are a lot more extensive than even what I realize.”
After finishing with a 15-19 record in his first season, WSU’s first losing season in 16 years, the Shockers have once again fizzled in American Athletic Conference play after a strong start to the year. WSU (11-10, 1-7 AAC) is looking to avoid a second straight last-place finish in conference play entering Tuesday’s 6 p.m. Central time road game at Charlotte, the only other 1-win team in the conference and WSU’s only conference win to date.
Winning conference games early in a turnaround is never easy, as demonstrated by the previous two architects who flipped the Shockers: Gregg Marshall (12-24 in conference play his first two seasons) and Mark Turgeon (13-23 in conference play in his first two seasons). But after a rough first season, both Marshall and Turgeon were able to double their win count in Year 2 and then push for the top of the standings in Year 3.
It’s difficult to make an apples-to-apples comparison with Mills’ 6-20 start in conference play because of how different team-building is in today’s era of college basketball with the transfer portal and NIL, not to mention WSU’s shift to the American. But the Shockers were unanimously expected to take a leap this season with Mills bringing back several key players and adding nothing but veterans in the portal. All nine of WSU’s rotation players are upperclassmen with eight currently in their final year of eligibility.
Mills doesn’t deny the team’s 1-7 start to AAC play has been disappointing, but forever an optimist, he views the 10 games remaining on the schedule as an opportunity for the Shockers to turn around their season.
“It’s what we signed up for. It’s what we do. It actually invigorates me,” Mills said about a WSU turnaround. “Why would you need leadership if everything was going well? This is the kind of stuff I enjoy doing. This is my calling, this is what I do. Now would I prefer less obstacles and bumps in the road? Absolutely. What’s different (at WSU) vs. Baylor and ORU, this is not a rebuild without resources.
“I was in situations at other places where you can go look at the budgets and we were last (in our league). This (at WSU) is not that. It’s extensive, but it’s way more feasible.”
At Baylor, it took head coach Scott Drew five years to crack the top-half of the Big 12 and earn an NCAA tournament bid that kicked off a run that has established the Bears as one of the nation’s top programs. At ORU, Mills inherited an 8-win team and needed just four years to take the Golden Eagles to their first NCAA Tournament in more than a decade and to their first Sweet 16 in program history.
While WSU classified as a rebuild job when Mills took over — compared to the lofty standard of recent teams — the WSU standard was also much higher than Mills’ previous two jobs. Multiple losing seasons won’t sit well with Shocker fans who long for the days when the NCAA Tournament was in play every single season.
For now, Mills detailed what he believes are the steps necessary to build a program capable of playing in March Madness routinely and how the Shockers are following those steps.
“The foundation of everything that you need to do in order to establish a program is you have to make sure the character in the room is good,” Mills said. “I feel good about that (at WSU). What has to happen after character, it’s the caliber of player, the caliber of person and the caliber of what you’re bringing into that locker room. The caliber of talent in this league is pretty good, so you’re way more mindful about what’s required to be at the upper echelon of this conference.
“You have a clearer vision about the things that need to get done inside the conference and outside in order to propel this program back to where we know it should be.”
Wichita State at Charlotte basketball preview
Records: WSU 11-10, 1-7 AAC; Charlotte 8-14, 1-8 AAC
When: 6 p.m. Central time Tuesday
Where: Halton Arena, Charlotte, N.C.
How to watch: ESPNU
Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM (Mike Kennedy with Bob Hull)
Series history: Tied 1-1 (Charlotte leads 1-0 in Charlotte)
Betting line: No odds yet
KenPom says: WSU 73, Charlotte 71
This story was originally published February 3, 2025 at 10:12 AM.
.jpg)