A familiar face from Wichita State’s rise returns to Roundhouse on Tuesday
An old, familiar face will return to the Roundhouse on Tuesday night.
When Wichita State returns home to face Mount Marty, an NAIA Division II team from South Dakota, the 6:30 p.m. game itself offers the Shockers a welcomed chance to regroup after a winless trip to the Bahamas.
But the emotional subplot belongs to Mount Marty assistant Marty Gross, who will step back onto the Koch Arena floor for the first time in 14 years after helping launch the most successful era of Shocker basketball.
Gross spent four seasons on Gregg Marshall’s inaugural staff from 2007-11, a period that transformed WSU from rebuilding project into rising national force. Walking back into the Roundhouse, he expects the memories to hit quickly.
“I was so grateful for the opportunity that coach Marshall gave me to come and be a part of this community and this fan base,” Gross said. “They’re the best in the country. So I’m excited to be back in the Roundhouse.”
His coaching odyssey spans 46 years and stops at Jacksonville, Rice, WSU, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Missouri State. After retiring from Division I, Gross moved home to Yankton, S.D., where he now lives down the street from his siblings. He planned on stepping away from the profession, until an old friend pulled him back in.
Mount Marty head coach Collin Authier, who onced worked with Gross at A&M-Corpus Christi, persuaded him to help build a small NAIA program in his hometown. For Gross, a 1973 Yankton High School graduate, the fit felt natural.
“Coach Gross is a basketball encyclopedia and a true hoops junkie,” Authier said in a statement. “He studies the game like no other and constantly focuses on the development of players both on and off the court. Our guys are blessed to have someone like him to learn from and be impacted by.”
Mount Marty’s visit to Wichita stems from a summer conversation between Gross and WSU head coach Paul Mills, who worked with Gross at Rice during the 2001-02 season. Mills was then a volunteer video coordinator — young and hungry.
When Gross mentioned Mount Marty needed a game, Mills saw a perfect scheduling window between the Bahamas trip and Saturday’s test at Northern Iowa. The agreement came quickly.
“I’ve had a chance to see Paul’s team play and he’s put together a great group of guys,” Gross said. “I’m excited for our guys to get to experience the atmosphere in Koch Arena. It’s such a great fan base and atmosphere.”
But the biggest pull for Gross is the chance to visit the program he helped at the beginning of its historic climb. He arrived in 2007 on a star-studded staff that included Chris Jans, Earl Grant and Chad Dollar — all now major-conference head coaches or assistants — and found himself immersed in what he still considers a daily master class
“It was like a coaching clinic every day, honestly,” Gross said. “From an X-and-O standpoint, from a basketball standpoint, from a preparation standpoint, from a recruiting standpoint, everything, I learned so much during my time there under coach Marshall. He was just elite. There wasn’t anyone better on game day. There just wasn’t. He was a master.”
Gross lived through the program’s foundational years: tough early seasons, incremental culture shifts and a rising confidence that crystallized in the 2011 NIT championship. That 29-win season, his final at WSU, became the springboard for everything that follow: seven straight NCAA Tournament berths, the 2013 Final Four and the 35-1 season that stamped the Shockers as a national brand.
To this day, Gross still brags to coaching friends about that 2011 Shockers team, a group built on depth with the only double-digit scorer being J.T. Durley at 11 points. With players like Toure’ Murry, Garrett Stutz, David Kyles and Joe Ragland, the Shockers toppled Virginia Tech on the road, then tore through Washington State and Klay Thompson before beating Alabama for the title.
“We were playing as good as anybody in the country at the time,” Gross said. “It really was a heck of a run. I tell people all of the time that we could have played with anybody in the country at that time. We were playing at that high of a level.”
He left for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi after the run, a move Marshall never let him forget every time they crossed paths in recruiting.
“After I left, coach Marshall liked to joke with me that I left too soon,” Gross said with a laugh. “He’s probably right. They really got it going after that. But my wife and I just loved Wichita and were so appreciative of the opportunity coach Marshall gave us.”
Gross still stops in Wichita on drives between Yankton and his other home in Houston, visiting old friends like former WSU director of operations Dominic Okon. He takes pride seeing former players like P.J. Couisnard and Matt Braeuer have success in their coaching careers.
On Tuesday, Gross will return to the same court, the same fans, the same building that once buzzed with the energy of a program finding its identity.
Fro one night, the man who lived through WSU’s rebirth returns in a visitor’s polo — and the Roundhouse will feel both familiar and new.
This story was originally published December 2, 2025 at 5:02 AM.
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