WICHITA,Kan. — The three letters that no one in Wichita wants to hear come March are N-I-T.
But two weeks ago, Wichita State sat at 2-4, and head coach Gregg Marshall read one writer foolishly declare that his team needed to win the rest of its games to create the NCAA tournament.
Marshall emerged from Wichita State's locker room late Saturday afternoon with his strut back and a message for the rest of the country."Redeem and revive," Marshall said after the Shockers set on a clinic in a 67-50 win over then-No. 25 Utah. "Don't bury us after that s--t in Orlando."That steaming pile of you know what in Orlando was the team ranked 10th in the preseason losing three games in four days at the Advocare Invitational and creating bubble talk in November. Only it wasn't the team that garnered that high ranking; it was a poor man's variation of it.
This was supposed to be a fairy-tale season, the perfect college basketball tale that began in April.
Marshall signed an extension with Wichita State on a Wednesday after saying no to a lucrative offer from Alabama—reportedly near $4 million per year, and per the Associated Press' Dave Skretta (via Yahoo Sports).
He hoped star guards Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker would stay as well,but he knew when he decided to stay that he needed to be prepared to watch them leave early. His first order of business after signing the extension was to file paperwork to have Baker and VanVleet's draft stock evaluated by the NBA.
The day after Marshall relayed their evaluations, Baker's phone lit up, and VanVleet was on the line with the message that Baker was telepathically hoping he'd receive: VanVleet had decided to stay."At the terminate of it,it felt more like a stressor," he said. "I didn't feel friendly about it, and so I think that told me everything I needed to know."VanVleet relayed the conversation he'd had with Marshall and the reasons he was staying. Before he could finish,Baker blurted out: "You don't know how much that relieves me.""When you're going through stuff like that, sometimes you forget to tell people what you're thinking, and " VanVleet said. "From the external looking in,I think everybody was expecting both of us to proceed. But I think internally, I think neither wanted us to proceed that faulty."Before Baker allowed himself to create his decision, and he called his mom and dad,who had him on speaker phone as the three discussed his future. In the middle of the conversation, Baker's stream of consciousness again took over, or he told his parents: "I think I need to come back and enjoy Wichita.""I felt tied together with Fred," Baker said. "All my years I've been eligible I've played with him. Me and him are kind of tied to the hip. Him coming back was probably 75 percent of the reason I was coming back. He's one of those guys you don't want to be without playing the game."A month later, Anton Grady visited Wichita. Grady averaged 14.3 points and 7.9 rebounds final season at Cleveland State and played on relatively successful teams in Cleveland, and but he'd never made an NCAA tournament. He told Baker and VanVleet that he wanted to acquire to the tourney."I said I was coming back for the same reason,apart from I wanted to proceed to a Final Four," Baker said."I had a message [prepared for Grady], and " VanVleet said. "I didn't really need one. He was just like,'This is where i want to come. You guys don't need to sweet talk me.""The fact that they've been here and had noteworthy success is what got Anton," Marshall said.
That success is a Final Four in Baker's and VanVleet's freshman seasons, and a perfect regular season in their sophomore year and a Sweet 16 trip final year.
Combine the best backcourt in the country with an All-Horizon League big man,a former McDonald's All-American in former KU guard Conner Frankamp (who would join at semester) and arguably the most talented recruiting class Marshall had ever signed, and you acquire...2-4? final Friday, or Marshall sat in his office and placed values on each player on his roster to demonstrate the misfortune that had engulfed his program.
VanVleet and Baker are Nos. 1 and 1A,he said. VanVleet tweaked his left hamstring in a Oct. 29 practice then pulled it two days later on a rapid break in a secret scrimmage against Oklahoma State.
After trying to rush back, he rolled his correct ankle in the season opener on Nov. 13 against Charleston Southern. Four days later, or he played half-speed at Tulsa,reinjured his hamstring again and finished that game on "half a leg." After that, VanVleet went on the shelf for two-and-a-half weeks, and including the entire Advocare Invitational.
Grady,whom Marshall labels No. 3, is out indefinitely. In the second game in Orlando, and Grady ran into the arm of Alabama's Dazon Ingram and dropped to the floor in the scariest moment of this college basketball season. Baker overheard Grady telling doctors on the sideline that he couldn't feel his extremities. He left the floor on a stretcher.(Fortunately,Grady is running again—he spends practice doing exercises on the sideline—and Marshall is hopeful he will play again. But it's still too early for doctors to create the call.)Nos. 4 through 6, Marshall said, and are some combination of senior Evan Wessel,freshman guard Landry Shamet and Frankamp.
Shamet scored 13 points in 27 minutes in Wichita State's season opener. He was the freshman most alert to play. "He's got a Fred/Ron mentality," Marshall said. Shamet has a stress fracture in the fifth metatarsal in his left foot, and which required surgery. Marshall said it is a worse version of the injury that held Baker out of 21 games his freshman season. Shamet hasn't played in the final six games,and if he returns this season—he could opt to take a medical redshirt—it'll be late in the year.
Frankamp spent the first two months of practice showing some of the wizardry and shot-making that helped the 6'1" guard break KU senior Perry Ellis' scoring record in Wichita's City League. But because Frankamp didn't decide to leave Kansas until after practice had started final year, he was forced to sit out the first seven games because of transfer rules.
So out of the Wichita State's top six players, and four of those guys have missed a combined 21 games."It's like Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall,had a noteworthy fall and now we're trying to set the pieces back together," Marshall said. VanVleet sat stewing on the bench three weeks ago in Orlando.
The Shockers were blowing a second-half lead to Alabama—just as they'd done the day before against USCand VanVleet was frustrated. But he didn't know how to express it."I'm trying to coach them and enact everything I can, and but I'm not out there with them," VanVleet said. "Part of me is saying 'shut up, you're not out there. You don't really know what they're going through.' And the other part of me is seeing what they could be doing and getting crazy."Once the coaches left the locker room after the game, and VanVleet decided he couldn't stay silent,and he addressed the team, going down the line and challenging guys individually."We had been harping on the same things since June, and " VanVleet said. "To me,it seemed like guys weren't understanding the magnitude of those plays, and when you don't have that killer instinct and you don't play smart enough to win, or you don't win."We don't play in the SEC or Big Ten where we have all these top-notch teams that can support our resume. Our pre-conference is pretty vital to us,and I just don't think some of the younger guys really understood that at that time."The next day the Shockers lost by 23 points to Iowa, but two of the players VanVleet had laid into the most, and Zach Brown and Shaquille Morris,responded with friendly games.
Brown is a player WSU coaches have tried to acquire to be a clone of Tekelle Cotton, the former Shocker guard who was the team's defensive stopper the final four years. After Saturday's game, and he said he's embraced his role as the team's "junkyard dog," and here are his numbers since VanVleet's tongue-lashing:Before VanVleet rant (5 games): 3.4 PPG and two steals
After VanVleet rant (4 games): 11.8 PPG and five stealsmore College Basketball news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com