Wichita State won’t ease into American Conference play this season. Instead, the Shockers stare down a stretch the program hasn’t faced in years: consecutive road games to open league play.
It’s an unusually demanding start — one the team hasn’t navigated, excluding the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, since before joining the conference in 2017.
The Shockers (8-5) travel to play UAB (9-4) on Wednesday at 3 p.m., followed by a road trip to Charlotte (6-7) on Saturday for a 5 p.m. tipoff. Both games air on ESPNU.
“I am excited about being able to go on the road,” head coach Paul Mills said Monday. “You don’t need to wait and find out if you have a road mentality and are doing the things necessary in order to win a road game.”
The grind doesn’t stop with the Blazers and 49ers. Four of Wichita State’s first six conference games are away from home — its heaviest early-conference travel load since 2008-09. After a 1-4 non-conference mark away from the Roundhouse, the stretch should quickly reveal whether the Shockers are ready for the challenge.
Those challenges loom larger now, given how Wichita State has fared away from home.
Four losses have exposed four issues: a slow start against Boise State, discipline lapses against Saint Mary’s, a defensive collapse that let Colorado State hit 15 straight shots, and trouble adjusting to Western Kentucky’s shifting defenses.
When asked how difficult he expects the stretch to be, Mills shrugged. He said he doesn’t know who the Shockers play beyond Charlotte. Wichita State hosts Rice and North Texas before heading back on the road for Florida Atlantic and South Florida.
“I’m just telling y’all, I keep blinders on,” Mills said with a laugh. “I need to be an expert in Shocker basketball and these 15 players. That’s what I pride myself in knowing better than anyone else in the country.”
The narrow focus is intentional, rooted in a philosophy he learned while at Baylor.
Mills approaches every game with what he calls a “1-0 mindset.” The teacher wasn’t Scott Drew or anyone on the coaching staff. It was LaceDarius Dunn, the Bears’ star guard who once held the Big 12’s all-time scoring record.
“[Dunn] taught me a really valuable lesson,” Mills said. “Get locked in on the day, do the things necessary for that particular day, and just focus on tackling and winning that day … You just get wired in and focused on that particular day. But the focus is how do you go 1-0? Progress is made in steps, and not leaps.”
That message has followed Mills to Wichita State. A placard in the locker room spells it out in simple terms: 1-0.
“That is our only focus,” Mills said. “How do you win this game? Then we’ll turn our attention because, the truth is they’re all different, you know. The way that we played pick-and-roll coverage with [Eastern Kentucky] was different than how we played pick-and-roll coverage with Wofford … But to try to look ahead and say, ‘This is how we’re going to attack it’ — you don’t know.”
Mills said the practices following the holiday break have been sharp — his preferred gauge of whether the Shockers are truly locked in. It’s a welcome sign after admitting the team “was not motivated” at this time last year, a lapse that showed in a sluggish outing in a win over cross-town Friends and a 1-7 start to conference play that preceded.
“We’ve gotten after it, and I think the practices have been good,” Mills said. “For me, you’re gauging that more than you are anything else.”
