Banner night for Mike Kennedy. Statement win for Wichita State basketball
For 46 years, Mike Kennedy’s voice turned living-room radios into a courtside seat for Wichita State basketball games.
On Saturday, Wichita State rolled out a first-class celebration for the voice of the Shockers, inviting back champions from three former teams and turning the game into Mike Kennedy Night, complete with custom shirts for the team and commemorative pennants handed out to fans.
With that much electricity in the building, losing wasn’t an option.
Not with the season’s largest crowd of 8,094 on hand. Not with the past greats in the Roundhouse. Not with Kennedy, who is retiring after this season, sitting at his usual courtside post.
The Shockers honored Kennedy the best way a team could: by pulling away for an emphatic 69-57 win over Temple at Koch Arena, pairing an emotional halftime ceremony with a second-half surge that left everyone feeling the magic of Shocker basketball again.
Before the game, the tone was already set. Every WSU team member wore black long-sleeved shirts dedicated to Kennedy. Then, after pregame introductions, each player made the detour to fist-bump Kennedy, one by one, a small gesture that was meaningful to the long-time announcer.
Even if players didn’t grow up hearing his calls, they still know what he means here. They’ve heard the way fans talk about the voice of the Shockers, the way alums come back and immediately gravitate toward Kennedy.
The game itself, at least early, didn’t come packaged with fireworks. It started as a slog, two teams clanking shots, searching for clean looks and WSU in search of that defining run to ignite the building. It never really came in the first half, but a Kenyon Giles 3-pointer right before the break did help the Shockers create some separation to hold a 33-27 halftime lead.
Then halftime arrived and the night became about more than the scoreboard.
WSU celebrated the anniversaries of three different championship teams, as players from the 1976, 2006 and 2016 Valley title-winning squads were back in attendance. Players such as Ron Baker, Paul Miller, Cheese Johnson, Kyle Wilson, Evan Wessel, Ryan Martin, Shaquille Morris and Doug Yoder, plus former head coach Mark Turgeon, made it back to the Roundhouse for the celebration.
The ceremony honoring Kennedy landed with the kind of care that comes from an athletic department that understood exactly what a person has meant. There was an emotional video with current and past WSU coaches talking about the brilliance of Kennedy, a portrait of someone who was born to be an announcer and had the rare ability, cadence and tone to make Shocker fans feel like they were right there in the building.
And then came the surprise: a banner of Kennedy unfurled in the rafters, a permanent place in the Roundhouse that will hang long after his final broadcast. A microphone trophy followed, along with a sideline decal and a customized jersey bearing his name and No. 46 — the number now synonymous with the years he’s devoted to WSU athletics.
He stood surrounded by dozens of family members, looking up at the jumbotron, teary-eyed as the arena poured gratitude over him.
And then, when it was all done, the Shockers came out of the break and did their part in the celebration. Giles buried two 3s right away, then hit another one in transition to stake WSU to a 50-37 lead. The lead swelled to 18 points after yet another Giles’ triple, and it was all WSU after that to the finish line.
Giles finished with 27 points and five 3s as he continued his chase of Wichita State’s single-season 3-point record. He’s now at 93 made 3s, six shy of Colby Rogers’ record of 99 set in 2024.
But this wasn’t a one-man shooting show. The backbone of the win was Wichita State’s work inside, as the Shockers dominated the glass 39-28 behind Emmanuel Okorafor, who delivered the best game of his career — and his first career double-double. He posted 13 points and 10 rebounds, both career highs.
The win pushed Wichita State to 18-10 overall and 10-5 in the American Conference, holding court in second place in the standings and reaching a milestone the program hadn’t touched since its 2021 championship season: 10 conference wins.
It’s not just a number, either. The Shockers are in the thick of a crowded chase, holding the tiebreaker over Tulsa (21-6, 9-5) with UAB (17-10, 8-6), Charlotte (14-13, 8-6), Memphis (12-14, 7-6) and Tulane (16-11, 7-6) all lurking behind. Temple, meanwhile, dropped its fourth straight to fall to 15-12 overall and 7-7 in league play.
There’s a certain poetry when a program honors its past and then plays like it understands the responsibility of the moment. Wichita State didn’t just throw a ceremony. It made the night feel worthy of Kennedy — and then it made the game match the sentiment.
This story was originally published February 21, 2026 at 7:14 PM.
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