Roundhouse revival: AfterShocks’ TBT title reminds Wichita what it can be again
Markis McDuffie sat alone, a black towel draped over his head, tears streaming down his face.
Around him, Koch Arena erupted. Teammates danced, fans screamed, black and yellow confetti rained. The AfterShocks had just won the $1 million championship game of The Basketball Tournament, 82-67 over Eberlein Drive — a crowning moment six years in the making.
But McDuffie wasn’t thinking about the money.
His mind was somewhere else entirely. He was 17 again, a skinny kid from New Jersey stepping off a plane in Wichita with a dream and no idea how hard it would be. He thought about the sprints that nearly broke him, the heartbreaks, the titles, the joy.
There’s a certain kind of magic when the Roundhouse is full — every player who’s ever worn a Shocker jersey knows it. Most players never feel that rush again after college. But on Sunday, McDuffie looked up and felt it: the rafters full, the city buzzing, the building breathing basketball once more.
And the weight of it all — the past, the people, the moment — overwhelmed him.
“I was crying, bro,” McDuffie said later. “There were so many emotions. To see all of these fans, to feel the love, man, Wichita State fans are just amazing. I seriously don’t understand why any player would not want to come here. I don’t care about the money — you can’t buy this kind of love. And it’s there forever.”
For McDuffie, and the thousands of WSU fans in the building, Sunday wasn’t just a win. It was a revival. The kind of moment that reminded a city and a program who they used to be and who they still could be.
A Roundhouse reawakened
The AfterShocks didn’t just win a tournament on Sunday. They woke up a city that was yearning for championship basketball.
A crowd of more than 9,000, the largest in TBT championship history and the biggest at Koch Arena since before the pandemic, reminded Wichita what it used to feel like to care this deeply about basketball.
“It felt like you turned back the clock,” said head coach Zach Bush, a former WSU walk-on turned architect of this summer run. “It was surreal to be back in that environment. It gives you chills when you walk out and see a crowd like that. Nobody gets to experience that once you leave college. It just doesn’t happen.”
Only four former Shockers suited up: McDuffie, Rashard Kelly, Conner Frankamp and Trey Wade. But every ex-Shocker on the court and coaching staff, which included Bush, J.R. Simon, Garrett Stutz and Brett Barney, had once won a conference title in that building. They all knew what it felt like to play in a packed Roundhouse.
On Sunday, they got it again.
“If you didn’t get chills during that, then there’s something wrong with you,” Simon said.
“I wish every game I play for the rest of my career could be like that,” Kelly said. “There’s nothing better.”
For someone like Wade, who spent two years at WSU before finishing his career at Arkansas, Koch Arena still has a hold on him. It’s why he keeps coming back every summer.
Even during this run, when his on-court minutes were limited, Wade said just being part of Sunday’s atmosphere made everything worth it. He’s played in the SEC. He’s been to the NCAA Tournament. But nothing compares to the Roundhouse when it’s alive.
“I sit on the bench and look up at the crowd and I see all those fans and I see the community come together as one,” Wade said. “I don’t ever want that to die. This is such a special place, man. I hope everyone here realizes that.”
It wasn’t just the former Shockers who felt the pull of something bigger. Even the non-alumni on the team found themselves swept up in it.
“It shows you what basketball can do,” Marcus Santos-Silva said. “It can bring a whole city together.”
The Shocker way, reborn
It wasn’t just the nostalgia that resonated, it was identity.
It helped the AfterShocks won, but it mattered that they won like Shockers.
They defended, rebounded and dove for loose balls. They held opponents to just 61.8 points per game — 20 below their average. They celebrated stops like buckets. It was the exact style of basketball that once made Wichita State nationally feared and the Shockers nearly unbeatable in Koch Arena.
“We let them know that defense and rebounding will always keep you in a game,” said assistant coach Garrett Stutz, who helped lay the foundation for the Shockers’ golden era. “If you shoot the ball well, you’ll win by 15. If you don’t shoot the ball well, you’ll still have a chance to win. That’s something the Shockers always relied upon, and this team really took that to heart.”
Most of the roster had no ties to WSU. Yet they bought in, fully. And the fans embraced them like their own.
“For these fans to allow six strangers to come play for this team, honestly Wichita has become my third home now,” Leyton Hammonds said. “I’m so grateful for the people here in Wichita, Kansas to accept me with open arms.”
Even a Tulsa alum and former rival, James Woodard, was blown away.
“I truly am grateful to be playing here and for these fans,” Woodard said. “For me, being a rival, to come and play for Wichita and for them to show me support like that, man, all I can say is I’m forever grateful.”
That’s why Wichita earned a place in the heart of Jon Mugar, the founder of TBT. It was the first city to truly embrace his vision. And on Sunday, it became the perfect stage for his tournament’s biggest moment yet.
“This is maybe 10 times more than what I ever imagined,” Mugar said. “I never ever imagined an environment like this in a game like that with this type of energy. So you can bet we’ll do everything in our power to keep it happening more and more.”
A glimpse of what could be
No Shocker fan was happier on Sunday than Jon Markwell.
The longtime Wichita State devotee has been with the AfterShocks since the beginning, rebounding for players before and after practice, stocking coolers with drinks, picking players up from the airport. His connection to the team isn’t ceremonial. It’s lived. Earned through years of loyalty and love.
So when the players called him onto the floor to celebrate with them, handing him a championship T-shirt and hat in the process, Markwell felt something deeper than joy. These were the kind of euphoric moments he used to experience inside Koch Arena on a regular basis.
“It was exactly like the old days,” Markwell said, voice cracking. “This was the kind of crowd, this was the kind of feeling and this was the kind of team.”
That’s what Sunday meant to so many Shocker fans: not just a championship, but a revival — of basketball pride, of community belief, of what the Roundhouse still can be when the energy returns and the people show up.
Markwell said what so many others were thinking during the celebration.
“This is encouraging to (WSU coach) Paul Mills and this new team because they can see what’s possible here,” Markwell said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, we’re going to have to build it back, but I hope these fans understand how much power they have when they fill this place up. I know the fans want it to feel like that again and I know the team wants it, so I hope we can get back to this.”
That hope — that spark — is what the AfterShocks gave back to Wichita State basketball.
Yes, the title and $1 million prize were meaningful. But perhaps the bigger gift was intangible: a reminder of what can happen in this city when a team gives the fans something to believe in.
“We had so many good times here when we were all in school and we all have so much love for this program,” Bush said. “We know they’re on the climb back, so to be able to provide some joy and excitement, I hope fans get behind the team again because they provide something so special when there’s that many people in here.”
In recent years, the buzz has dulled. The once-deafening Roundhouse — famous for sellouts and its raucous, hostile crowd — has seen its upper bowl go quiet.
Stutz, the former star center who helped put the Shockers back on the map more than a decade ago, remembers when fans lined up hours before tipoff for nonconference games against no-name opponents. So to return in recent seasons and see empty rows for marquee games was difficult.
“I love Wichita and I love the fans, but it was tough to go back to the Roundhouse and only see a few thousand fans,” Stutz said. “I get the world has changed, college basketball and the whole landscape has changed, but I really hope Wichita will get behind the program again and bring that energy and that atmosphere and that home-court advantage that we saw for the AfterShocks. I want to see that for the Wichita State Shockers too.”
Even the newcomers understood what made this place different.
Chevez Goodwin had never stepped foot in Kansas before joining the AfterShocks this summer. But after this run, he left with a new understanding of what Shocker basketball meant — and still could mean — to the city.
“It feels like we gave these fans and this city life again,” Goodwin said. “When I got here, everyone was telling me Wichita State wasn’t the same as it used to be. I always thought that was weird to think like that.
“So I hope this win can help the fans grow that support back and remember what it was like when they were winning again. We hope whatever light we just lit, one of those kids y’all be giving all that NIL money to can keep that light going now.”
Now WSU will hope what happened Sunday wasn’t the end of something, but the beginning. Not a fleeting summer memory, but a spark that catches.
Because what happened inside Koch Arena wasn’t just about summer basketball or a million-dollar prize. It was about a connection, between past and present, players and fans, a city and its basketball soul.
The AfterShocks reminded everyone what it used to feel like. And more importantly, what it still could.
“I just hope this isn’t a flash in the pan,” Stutz said. “I hope this can continue to trend upward, and let’s get back to selling out every game for the university.”
This story was originally published August 4, 2025 at 6:02 AM.
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