Wichita State baseball showed its fight. Now Brian Green must make it last
For one week in Florida, Wichita State baseball looked like the kind of program Brian Green has been trying to build.
The Shockers played with urgency. They competed on the mound. They clawed out of trouble. They kept answering when their season was one swing, one pitch, one bad inning from ending. Green said WSU’s effort for a week straight was as hard as any team he has seen.
That fight carried WSU farther than most would have expected from a seventh-seeded team that needed an extra-inning win on the final day of the regular season just to qualify for the American Conference tournament.
It also framed the most important question of Green’s tenure entering Year 4.
Can Wichita State make that desperation-level edge its everyday identity?
Because for all the heart the Shockers showed in Clearwater, the larger picture is more complicated. WSU finished 31-27, won three games in the American tournament and ended as the third team left standing. It also finished No. 142 in the RPI, ninth among the 10 teams in the American, lost every important midweek game and never came close to positioning itself for an at-large NCAA Regional bid.
That leaves Green with both momentum and pressure after his third season at WSU.
“I’m very optimistic about where we’re going,” Green said. “Hopefully we can capitalize and continue to build on the end of this season. Hopefully we don’t have to start all over again with the portal. I want this to be our team. We want to keep a lot of these guys here in Wichita.”
There was plenty for Green to be proud of last week.
WSU opened the American tournament with a 3-2 elimination-game win over Florida Atlantic, lost 5-4 to Rice on a ninth-inning run, then bounced back to eliminate Memphis, 6-4, and UAB, 14-12. By the time the Shockers reached their fifth game in four days, they had almost nothing left on the mound and finally bowed out in a 13-3 run-rule loss to East Carolina.
WSU had already spent its best arms simply to survive. Caleb Reed delivered one of the signature performances of the week, throwing 105 pitches just two days after a relief appearance and striking out eight over 6 2/3 innings against Memphis.
“That was heroic,” Green said.
Brady Hamilton pitched three different days in the tournament, including 2 2/3 scoreless innings to close the comeback win over UAB. The pitching situation became so dire that position players Owen Washburn, Zeb Henry and Nico Rodriguez told coaches they were willing to take an inning if needed.
Star hitter Jayson Jones, meanwhile, was dealing with severe heat exhaustion. He had to be pulled in the ninth inning against UAB to receive IVs and was not in condition to play against East Carolina.
Even in the final loss, Green said the effort left an impression. During a late pitching change with the game already out of reach, an umpire told pitching coach Anthony Claggett to pass along compliments to Green about how hard the Shockers continued to compete.
“I had a really hard time getting those words out of me,” Green said of addressing the team afterward. “It was very emotional with the guys and I certainly had to fight off some tears. My chin was bumping up and down. There were so many efforts of guys giving everything for this university and this program and this team. There was so much fight.”
That fight was real.
So was the reason WSU needed so much of it.
The Shockers were in that position because they were not one of the top four seeds in the American, which would have earned them a first-day bye and kept them out of the opening elimination game. Green said WSU became a perfect example of why the regular season matters so much in the current tournament format.
By the time the Shockers had outlasted FAU, Memphis and UAB, they had burned through the arms necessary to win the tournament.
“We just out-willed them,” Green said of the UAB win. “Our kids just fought so hard. They emptied the tank. We were so close, man. One game away from playing for a title again. I would have loved to have Jayson Jones for that ECU game and I would loved to have one more arm for that tournament. Feels like we would have been packing our bags for a regional.”
The Shockers have twice made deep American tournament runs under Green. In 2024, they beat top-seeded East Carolina twice and reached the title game before losing 11-10 to Tulane on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. This year, they again won three tournament games and came within one more win of playing for a championship.
Those moments have shown what WSU can look like when it plays with its season on the line.
The next step is avoiding the need for so many rescue acts.
WSU’s 31 wins were respectable on paper, and Green has now won at least 30 games in two of his first three seasons. That matters in the context of a program that has managed just six 30-win seasons in the 13 years since Gene Stephenson’s departure.
But the record also came against the No. 255-ranked nonconference schedule. WSU went 38-43 in American play over Green’s first three seasons and is 83-94 overall, a .469 winning percentage. The Shockers also let a strong conference position slip late this spring, going from two games up for fourth place in the standings to needing a win on the final day just to make the tournament.
That is why Clearwater cannot simply be remembered as a feel-good finish.
It has to become a standard.
“We’ve got to do a better job as a coaching staff getting to these kids earlier,” Green said. “It was apparent we finally connected as a program in Clearwater. That’s the identity we want to have in this program. It’s a great thing we finished the season on an upward trend, but at the same time, we have to eliminate some of those lumps in the middle.”
The timing is important for another reason.
After WSU’s 2024 tournament run, athletic director Kevin Saal extended Green’s original contract by one year in a move that was not publicized at the time. An open records request revealed Green signed the extension a little more than three weeks after the Shockers finished that 2024 season, when WSU won 10 of its final 13 games, reached the American tournament final and finished with 32 wins, the program’s most in six years.
The extension turned Green’s original five-year contract into a six-year deal that runs through the end of the 2029 season.
Green could have earned an automatic extension by winning 45 regular-season games, winning a share of the regular-season conference title or reaching the NCAA Tournament through an at-large bid. Instead, Saal made the decision to add a year after Green’s first season.
The terms of the buyout did not change. If WSU fired Green without cause after July 1 this summer, it would owe him $990,750, compared to $655,500 before the extension. The additional year added $335,250 in potential buyout exposure, though Green’s contract includes a duty-to-mitigate clause.
Green’s sixth year on the contract is scheduled to pay him $415,000 in base salary, plus $32,000 in additional compensation tied to radio, television, official appearances, other appearances and club memberships. He is also set to earn a $30,000 retention bonus if he remains coach entering July 1, 2028.
In practical terms, WSU has given Green time.
Now he needs to turn the flashes into a more complete season.
The first part of that challenge is retention. Green said there are 25 players on paper who could potentially return next season, though he understands some portal attrition is inevitable. That has already started with weekend starter Johnny Nuanez planning to enter the transfer portal when it opens Monday.
Losing Nuanez hurts, but the Shockers still have several key arms they hope to keep, including Matthew Cuccias, Reed and Hamilton. Position-player retention will also matter with catcher Max Kaufer, first baseman Nolan Ganter and outfielder Kaleb Duncan among the important names to monitor. Kaufer was one of WSU’s best stories early in the season, blasting 11 home runs in his first 50 at-bats before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury in March.
“I’m excited about where this program is going,” Green said. “If you look at our pitching, we’ve got an opportunity to retain a lot of really good arms. Retention is the name of the game for the Shockers.”
That line may end up defining WSU’s offseason.
Green brought in 31 new players this season and he believes part of the inconsistent regular season came from trying to get so many new pieces aligned. When the Shockers finally connected in Clearwater, he saw the edge he wants: scrappy, resilient, stubborn and willing to empty the tank.
“We had so many guys do something that week that they hadn’t done all season,” Green said. “A lot of it was on the mound. Guys going on no rest.
“That was seven consecutive games where we played as hard as any team I’ve ever been a part of for that consecutive amount of time. It was just awesome to see. The competitive level was phenomenal. I’m just really proud of our guys for the fight that they showed.”
That is the version of Wichita State that made Clearwater meaningful.
But the program Green inherited is not measured by inspiring elimination-game runs alone. It is measured against a standard that still hangs over Eck Stadium: postseason baseball, regional relevance and seasons that do not require late-May heroics just to stay alive.
The Shockers proved in Florida that they can fight.
Now comes the harder part.
They have to prove they can play that way before their season is on the line.
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