Wichita State basketball finalizes upcoming roster with score-first guard
Just like that, every spot on the Wichita State men’s basketball team is full for the upcoming season.
Head coach Paul Mills was in seek of more shooting and ball handling to fill out his roster and found it with the commitment of Nicholls guard Mike Gray Jr., a 6-foot-2 senior from Fredericksburg, Va.
Barring any significant developments in legislature this summer, Gray’s signing will likely be the last for the Shockers in the 2025 recruiting class. In total, Mills added eight players from the transfer portal to overhaul WSU’s roster: shooting guard Brian Amuneke (Fresno State), power forward Dillon Battie (Temple), center Will Berg (Purdue), forward Karon Boyd (East Tennessee State), shooting guard Kenyon Giles (UNC Greensboro), Gray, center Emmanuel Okorafor (Seton Hall) and forward Jaret Valencia (Monmouth).
Entering the week needing guard depth and shooting help, Mills appears to have hit his target on both. Amuneke, who hit 40.7% of his 3-pointers last season, committed to WSU on Monday and Gray, who drilled 40.9% on 5.3 attempts beyond the arc last season, followed suit just two days later. Amuneke (6-5) and Gray (6-2) also bring some much-needed size to the backcourt.
Gray averaged 11.1 points, 2.8 rebounds and 0.7 assists in 23.1 minutes per game while shooting 42.7% from the field and 81.7% on free throws as a super-sub for a Nicholls team that finished with a 20-13 record and No. 167 ranking on KenPom.
Much like Amuneke, who made 46% of his 3s during the final six weeks of the season, Gray was even better during conference play last season. He averaged 13.6 points and hit 42.3% of his 3s on even more attempts (6.1) per game.
In an interesting twist, according to a source within the program, WSU plans to employ Gray as a point guard. He doesn’t have much of a proven track record in the way of a distributor with a 0.9 average for assists in 68 college games, but the film shows Gray is more than comfortable with the ball in his hands.
According to Synergy’s tracking logs, the second-most common play type for Gray last season was as a pick-and-roll ball handler. He excelled with the ball up top and coming off a screen, scoring 1.10 points per possession to rank in the 96th percentile nationally. The bulk of his 3s came on catch-and-shoot looks, but Gray did some firepower with his handle by drilling 50% of his 3s off the dribble.
His 41% shooting accuracy from distance actually becomes more impressive once watching the film on Gray, who was not shy from pulling up from well behind the 3-point line on several of his makes. He finished the season with a 119.0 offensive rating on a 21.2% usage rate and while did technically have more turnovers (22) than assists (20), Gray’s turnover rate of 9.7% was one of the best (top 130) in the country.
So while the assists might not rack up with Gray running the offense, he could serve as a microwave scorer — something the Shockers have desperately needed to juice an offense that hasn’t finished top-100 in four seasons.
Wichita State basketball 2025-26 roster
Brian Amuneke, so., 6-5, G (Fresno State)
Dillon Battie, so., 6-8, F (Temple)
Will Berg, jr,. 7-2, C (Purdue)
Karon Boyd, sr., 6-5, F (East Tennessee State)
Pierre Couisnard Jr., fr., 6-3, G
Kenyon Giles, sr., 5-9, G (UNC Greensboro)
Mike Gray Jr., sr., 6-2, G (Nicholls)
Noah Hill, fr., 6-8, F-C
Joy Ighovodja, jr., 6-4, G-F
Keandre Kindell, jr., 6-0, G (Barton Community College)
Emmanuel Okorafor, sr., 6-9, C (Seton Hall)
Tyrus Rathan-Mayes, fr., 6-6, G-F
Henry Thengvall, jr., 6-6, G
Jaret Valencia, jr., 6-9, F (Monmouth)
T.J. Williams, fr., 6-5, G-F
This story was originally published May 8, 2025 at 5:04 AM.
.jpg)