Shockers tip off new season with first full basketball practice at Koch Arena
The long summer of workouts and open gyms is finally over.
On Tuesday inside Koch Arena, the Wichita State men’s basketball team officially begins its 2025-26 season with its first full-length practice — and a team that has revealed both promise and plenty of work ahead.
Few players have turned more heads this offseason than Kenyon Giles, a 5-foot-10 scoring dynamo from UNC Greensboro who averaged 15.3 points per game last season. In last Thursday’s open practice, Giles was once again in rhythm, dancing with the ball on the perimeter and knocking down jumper after jumper. He’s quickly emerged as one of the Shockers’ most reliable sources of offense.
He and fellow newcomer Dre Kindell have been the most consistent offensive performers in Koch Arena workouts, a potential diminutive (Kindell is listed at 5-foot-11) but dynamic backcourt pairing that head coach Paul Mills could lean on this season. Mills likes to split them up in 5-on-5 scrimmages, letting them push each other under the old proverb: Iron sharpens iron.
“When we’re going at it in practice, we’re just trying to make each other better,” Kindell said. “Because me and him, in the backcourt, against other teams is going to be scary. They have to guard us.”
Their styles are different but complementary: Giles a pure scorer who thrives with the ball in his hands, Kindell a traditional point guard who manipulates defenses to set up teammates. Both, however, can toggle between roles depending on the matchup.
For Kindell, who arrives from the junior-college ranks, the biggest adjustment has been the physicality and speed of Division I players.
“It’s a lot faster, guys are a lot stronger, taller,” Kindell said. “A lot of the things I was getting off in JUCO, I can’t get off now. So I’m just trying to adapt and get used to the speed.”
The Shockers haven’t been at full strength in recent workouts, with as many as five players sidelined. Mike Gray Jr. and Jaret Valencia were limited to stationary bikes with foot injuries during last Thursday’s open practice, while Mills also mentioned Karon Boyd was hampered by an undisclosed issue. The coach clarified that none of the injuries are considered serious and WSU is expecting a full roster as soon as Tuesday.
That leaves less than three weeks to prepare for the Oct. 11 scrimmage against Drake and six weeks before the Shockers’ Nov. 4 season-opener against UNC Asheville in the Roundhouse. On the scheduling front, the American Conference schedule is expected to be released Friday when WSU will learn official dates for its upcoming conference season.
As for the improvements that have already been made, Mills said there was an obvious one from the summer workout window.
“Defensively, we’ve gotten better,” Mills said. “It’s the little things like (contesting), being able to defend the paint, boxing out. Our physicality has gotten better. We get a lot done via the film room, so they can tell if there’s a lack of physicality. The physicality has increased and defensively we’ve come a long way.”
Under Mills, WSU has flourished as a cutting team and ranked among the nation’s best at scoring off cuts each of the last two seasons. That should remain a signature, as last Thursday’s drills reinforced the point. Players practiced corner cuts off big-man rolls, looking to catch defenses ball-watching.
“If I see the back of a jersey, it’s flat line, which means you’re dead,” redshirt freshman T.J. Williams said. “Just make sure I’m cutting and do what I do best, getting on the glass, getting extra possessions for the team and just being explosive.”
Conditioning, though, is a concern.
“We don’t have the endurance that we need right now,” Mills admitted. “There’s a need to play harder that we’re just not at, from a physical standpoint and from an endurance standpoint. Physically, we can hold our own and we’ll embrace that. But we just don’t have the wind right now, which is understandable.”
To help, Mills has leaned more heavily on 5-on-5 action this fall than in his previous two preseasons at WSU. He estimates the team plays three or four “games” each practice, mining the film for teachable moments.
“We’re getting a lot of teaching film out of that,” Mills said. “That’s where a lot of the teaching is happening.”
Mills also acknowledge the new challenge of roster building in the transfer portal era. Twelve of WSU’s 15 players are newcomers this season, a sharp contrast from his Oral Roberts team that reached the 2021 Sweet 16 with a veteran, homegrown group.
“You have to get components from winning programs and you have to trust the people that you’re talking to,” Mills said. “I trust Matt Painter and I trust everything he tells you about (Purdue transfer) Will Berg. So you end up trusting coaches a lot more and the things that they say.”
Reports from WSU’s closed scrimmage with the AfterShocks, who went on to win The Basketball Tournament, earlier this summer suggested the current group held its own physically. That edge was visible again in open practice, where scoring in the paint was a grind and rebounding battles were ferocious.
Practice even ended abruptly after big man Emmanuel Okorafor took an accidental elbow to the head, requiring treatment for a cut above his eye.
“There’s a lot to do,” Mills said of the weeks ahead. “A lot of I’s to dot and T’s to cross. You’re really trying to make it simple. The more their brains are moving, the slower their feet usually do. We’ve been pretty basic and just trying to make sure guys can do fundamental things.”
With 30 practices to squeeze into the next 42 days, the Shockers’ foundation starts Tuesday. From there, the countdown to Nov. 4 begins.
This story was originally published September 23, 2025 at 6:05 AM.
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