At 7-foot-5, Wichita State’s new GA gives Will Berg someone to look up to
It is not often a 7-foot-2 center has to look up to anyone on his own team.
But Will Berg will have to tilt his head back this season at Wichita State — not for a teammate, not for an opposing big man, but for a graduate assistant.
The Shockers have added Connor Vanover, the 7-foot-5 former Oral Roberts center who played for WSU head coach Paul Mills, to their staff for the upcoming season. It gives WSU what is almost certainly the tallest graduate assistant in college basketball and, more importantly to Mills, a rare practice resource capable of challenging Berg in ways most programs cannot replicate.
“I think having Connor around is going to be great for our bigs,” Mills said. “To have somebody to actually shoot over, instead of us as coach or the GA’s trying to hit them with pads or use blockers. He’s going to provide that game-like look.”
That was the point.
Graduate assistants are often asked to do a little bit of everything in a college basketball program. They rebound. They help with drills. They cut film. They organize behind-the-scenes details. When needed, they serve as extra bodies in practice.
But most graduate assistants do not come with more than seven feet of wingspan.
Vanover, 26, has not played in a competitive game since 2024 and admits he is no longer in game shape. But he is still young enough to get up and down the floor. He is still tall enough to make a 7-2 center feel crowded. And he still has enough feel from a six-year college career to pass along the details that only players of unusual size truly understand.
That is why Mills viewed the hire as more than a staff addition. It was a chance to give Berg, 6-11 senior Cyr Malonga and 6-8 sophomore Noah Hill a daily challenge they will rarely see in games.
“I was around him every day for a year, so I understand the value that he brings and how much he cares about people,” Mills said. “He’s going to do a great job assisting our staff and assisting our bigs.”
Vanover’s basketball path has been winding, but his best college season came under Mills.
The Little Rock, Ark., native played from 2018 to 2024 with stops at California, Arkansas, Oral Roberts and Missouri. His breakthrough came at Oral Roberts during the 2022-23 season, when he was named Summit League Defensive Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year while averaging career highs of 12.7 points, 7.2 rebounds and 3.2 blocks.
After his playing career ended, Vanover returned home last season and tried coaching as a volunteer assistant at his high school alma mater, Baptist Prep. The experience confirmed what he had already started to consider: His playing days might be over, but a career in basketball did not have to be.
“I think coaching can be a good avenue for me after my playing days because I have so much experience,” Vanover said. “And then with my height, I feel like it’s very rare to have somebody like that. So I’m just really excited to be able to help other people out.”
His relationship with Mills goes back much further than one season at Oral Roberts.
Mills recruited Vanover out of high school, then stayed in touch when Vanover entered the transfer portal. It did not work out the first time, but the groundwork paid off when Vanover eventually transferred to Oral Roberts. The two have remained close since then with Vanover viewing Mills as one of the coaches who has consistently believed in him.
“We’ve just always had a connection and he’s just a really nice guy,” Vanover said. “He really knows what he’s talking about. He really studies this stuff. So I feel like he has so much knowledge and experience as a coach and it’s going to be amazing to learn from under him.”
Vanover did not know when he accepted the job that WSU had a 7-2 starting center waiting for him.
Once he arrived in Wichita at the start of June and learned about Berg, his reaction was immediate.
“When they said they had a 7-2 guy here, I was like, ‘Alright, let’s go,’” Vanover said. “It’s going to be pretty fun working with him.”
The visual comparison is obvious, but Vanover and Berg are not the same kind of big man.
Vanover’s playing weight was around 230 pounds, making him unusually slender for his height. Berg is listed at 265 pounds despite being three inches shorter, giving him the stronger frame and more natural power around the rim.
Their offensive games are different, too. Berg does most of his work near the basket, carving out position, sealing defenders and finishing around the rim. Vanover was more of a pick-and-pop weapon who attempted 326 3-pointers during his 130-game college career.
That contrast is part of why Vanover believes he can help Berg.
“The big difference between me and him is the weight,” Vanover said. “He has a lot more pounds than I do, so he’s able to use that to his advantage a lot better than I did. But at the same time, being lighter helped me be a little more mobile around the perimeter. The big thing for bigs is getting the footwork right because when you step out to the perimeter, it’s so much different than doing things down low. So that’s one way I’m going to try to help him is with his footwork.”
Berg is tied for the tallest player in WSU history to wear a Shocker uniform. This season, he will be looking up to someone in the program who will never check into a game.
That is exactly the kind of unusual wrinkle Mills wanted.
Berg is unlikely to face a 7-5 opponent this season, but practicing against Vanover can still help simulate length, contests and release points that are more extreme than Berg will see in most games.
It also changes the energy of WSU’s pickup runs.
Mills laughed when describing how Hill has already made it a personal mission this month to try to dunk over Vanover. After spending the past year trying to finish over Berg, Hill now has an even taller target.
Vanover is still settling into Wichita. He arrived on campus about three weeks ago, when WSU assembled for the first time this summer. The Shockers have not held organized team practices yet, so most of the early work has been individual development sessions, weight-room training and pickup games designed to help the roster get familiar with one another.
Vanover has used part of that time to watch games from last season, studying WSU’s returning players and learning how he might fit into the program from the coaching side.
The addition is part of a larger staff reshuffling for Mills this offseason.
Assistant coach Iain Laymon, who had spent the past nine years with Mills at Oral Roberts and WSU, decided to step away from coaching. Longtime staff member Ryan Hillard, who had been with the program since 2008 and most recently carried the title of chief of staff, also left to pursue a different career field.
Mills has shifted Nolan Magee, who remains WSU’s director of operations, into some of the responsibilities Hillard handled. He also hired Sam Kearns, another former Oral Roberts player, as the Shockers’ video coordinator.
Kearns was a three-year team captain for Mills at Oral Roberts from 2017-20. He spent last season as an assistant coach at East Central, a Division II program in Ada, Okla., after two years as a graduate assistant at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. Kearns has also worked as a personal skills trainer with WNBA star Arike Ogunbowale among his past clients.
“Sam has seen a lot of things from a lot of different levels,” Mills said. “He’s a guy that is really passionate about helping other people. We needed to shuffle some things around on staff, so when I reached out, he was super interested. He is going to be a phenomenal addition.”
WSU still has one opening on its coaching staff, as Mills can hire an assistant coach this summer.
Vanover’s role will be less public, but it could become important in the daily grind of WSU’s season. He gives Mills someone he already knows and trusts. He gives the staff another young coach learning the Division I side of the profession. And he gives Berg and the rest of WSU’s centers something they cannot easily find elsewhere.
A 7-foot-5 graduate assistant is a novelty.
For the Shockers, he might also be an advantage.
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