The college basketball offseason is here, and we decided to have some fun over the next few months, ranking ALL 364 teams in D1. Number 66 is Wichita State basketball.
Before you say we’re crazy – or that all of this is up for debate, let’s go over the very intricate process of how we came to this conclusion. We took a very statistical approach – with the help of Chat GPT – taking into consideration everything from March Madness wins and finishes, to AP Poll appearances, to conference players of the year. And then, a good friend of ours, Scott Blanchard, took our approach to the MAX.
Click here to visit the FIRST article, which explains how the formula works!
Here’s the breakdown of Wichita State basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 2
- Elite Eights: 4
- Sweet 16s: 6
- NCAA wins: 18
- Bids: 16
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 14.4
- Bids per season: 0.13
- AP Polls: 161
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 5
- NBA players drafted & played: 11
- Conference Players of the Year: 7
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 12
- Conference tournament titles: 4
- NIT titles: 1
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Wichita State basketball
The Shockers are another mid-major program with lots of history and continued success here in the 2020s.
The program started to achieve some big-time success in the 1950s as head coach Ralph Miller took the post. From 1951-64, he went 220-133 and led them to their first-ever NCAA Tournament in 1964, where they would get eliminated in the Elite 8. Miller left for Iowa, with Gary Thompson leading them to the Final Four the next season. The team featured two future NBA Draft picks in Dave Stallworth and Nate Bowman. Stallworth averaged a mind-boggling 25.0 points, 12.1 rebounds, and 5.9 assists per game. He was a 2x Consensus AA.
The Shockers would continue to have some spread-out tournaments but continued success in the 70s and 80s, dropping down a bit in the 90s. But upon Mark Turgeon’s arrival in 2000, things started to turn around for the better. He would take them to the big dance in 2006, breaking a drought of nearly two decades.
As Turgeon left for Maryland in 2007, Gregg Marshall would be next up and took the Shockers to unbelievable heights. They made the big dance every March from 2012 to 2018 and dominated the Missouri Valley Conference and the American Athletic.
The 2012-13 season was marked in college hoops history, as the Shockers went all the way to the Final Four as a 9-seed. Led by Cleanthony Early, the team also featured freshmen Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet, who would, of course, keep them in the national picture over the course of the next few seasons. Landry Shamet was another great player during this era.
The Marshall era ended sourly, as he resigned over claims of physical and verbal abuse. At the time, he was one of the top coaches in the game and in the mix for a bigger job, but hasn’t coached since. The program was also affected, going to the NCAA Tournament in year one of Isaac Brown in 2021, but not getting back since. However, current coach Paul Mills did just lead them to 24 wins in year three, so the Shockers may be on the rise again.
Another crazy fact for your bar trivia – Wichita State had THREE players drafted in the first round of the NBA Draft in the 1980s. Cliff Levingston went ninth overall in 1982. Antoine Carr went eighth overall in 1983. And Xavier McDaniel went fourth overall in 1985.
Obviously, Wichita State has had some solid history, but the majority of it has come recently as they went from an above-average mid-major with some good runs in March to that being the standard for the program year in and year out. Simply put, in current-day college basketball, the game is better when the Shockers are good.