WSU notes: Former Shocker Toure Murry healthy and fighting for an NBA spot

Toure Murry is determined to take another shot at the NBA now that he is healthy. That is why he sticks to the NBA Development League instead of playing for bigger money overseas.

Murry, who played at Wichita State from 2008-12, is averaging 14.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists for the Texas Legends, entering Saturday’s game. D-League players make between $13,000-$25,000 per season. Overseas, it is common to make six figures.

Murry knows all that. He also knows how it feels to play in the NBA.

“I’m really eager to get back out there and restart my career,” he said. “It’s never been about the money. I just want to continue to pump it up, until the NBA tells me ‘No thanks.’ ”

Murry, a 6-foot-5 guard, played 56 NBA games over the past two seasons, 51 with the New York Knicks. He was set for a playoff run with the Washington Wizards last season before spraining an ankle in late March. The Wizards waived him.

He went to the Las Vegas Summer League with the Wizards and a groin injury benched him. Murry spent the fall in Washington’s training camp before landing in the D-League.

The NBA’s move toward linking each D-League team with an NBA club encourages Murry.

The Legends are affiliated with the Dallas Mavericks and all 19 teams are affiliated with an NBA team. Three more NBA teams will add D-League teams next season. Thirty percent of NBA players spent time in the D-League, which counts Miami’s Hassan Whiteside, Utah’s Rudy Gobert and Toronto’s DeMarre Carroll among its recent success stories.

“They’re really taking the D-League seriously,” said Murry, who has played parts of four seasons with D-League teams.

Murry’s versatility and point-guard skills got him chances with the Knicks and Wizards. He is learning more point guard tricks with Legends coach Nick Van Exel, who played 13 NBA seasons, five with the Lakers.

“He knows the game, and most important, he knows the development for me as a point guard,” Murry said.

Two more seasons for Reilly — Wichita State volleyball player Katie Reilly will end her Shockers career in the next few weeks. Her beach volleyball career starts soon after.

Reilly, a senior middle, will graduate from WSU in December and transfer to South Carolina, where she will will play two seasons of beach volleyball while she works on her master’s degree in exercise science. The NCAA considers her 2015-16 one season, so she is eligible to play beach in the spring. She is also eligible to play beach again in the spring of 2017.

“I’ve always loved beach volleyball,” she said. “I’ve never been trained in that realm, but I just love the sport. You’re in the game so much more because you touch the ball like every other time.”

The NCAA made beach volleyball an “emerging” sport in 2009. The sport’s first championship takes place in May with an eight-team tournament in Gulf Shores, Ala. Around 50 schools play.

Reilly’s connection to South Carolina started with former WSU assistant R.J. Abella, now an assistant at South Carolina.

The road to Greensboro, N.C. — Wichita State’s 2006 Sweet 16 team will reunite on Dec. 31 when the Shockers play Drake at Koch Arena (1 p.m.).

The 2005-06 Shockers won WSU’s first Missouri Valley Conference title since 1983 and advanced to the first NCAA Tournament since 1988. They defeated Seton Hall and second-seeded Tennessee (two days after the Vols survived an opener against Gregg Marshall’s Winthrop team) in Greensboro, N.C.

George Mason ended the run in a Sweet 16 matchup in Washington D.C.

Come on back — Pitcher Matt Whalen suffered a stress fracture in his right elbow, interrupting his high school career, and forcing him to redshirt as a freshman at Wichita State in 2015.

He transferred to Cisco (Texas) College after the season, rather than walk-on at WSU. While WSU didn’t have scholarship money for him for 2016 (because of drafted players who returned to school), Whalen will return for the 2017 season after signing last week. He is part of a 13-man recruiting class that features nine pitchers.

“They re-offered me my scholarship and we were still on great terms,” Whalen said in a text message.

Those kind of situations are not unusual in college baseball, where coaches must squeeze 27 scholarship players into 11.7 scholarships. Whalen, from Highland Ranch, Colo., is healthy and can get more innings at Cisco than he would at WSU in the spring.

“We really tried to handle it well and he understood the situation, with him not being able to pitch for two years,” WSU coach Todd Butler said. “We tried to be very delicate, because we really wanted to get him back. He trusts what we’re trying to do and wants to be a part of it again.”

Listen up — WSU’s women’s basketball is returning to the radio, partially.

All remaining road games are on KNSS, 1330-AM, starting with a pre-game show approximately 15 minutes before tip-off.

On the team — Topeka High’s Rachel Stous, a four-time Class 6A medalist, signed with Wichita State’s women’s golf team.

Stous placed ninth in October’s Class 6A meet, her third straight top-10 finish. She played on the Kansas Women’s Golf Association Junior women’s team the past three years.

San Diego’s Annika Chickering and Michelle Ledermann of Bolivia also signed. Ledermann is the top-ranked amateur in Bolivia.

▪  Honza Poboril, of the Czech Republic, signed with WSU’s men’s tennis team.

▪  First baseman/pitcher Paxton Wallace, from Greenbrier (Ark.) High, gave WSU a non-binding commitment for baseball and announced it on Twitter. Wallace is a junior.

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 4:16 PM with the headline "WSU notes: Former Shocker Toure Murry healthy and fighting for an NBA spot."