Wichita State’s path to a league title and NCAA Tournament berth has been made clearer after Sunday’s regular season conclusion.

The Shockers, who won their sixth-straight game Saturday against Florida Atlantic, locked up the No. 2 seed and bye all the way to the semifinals at the American Conference Championship a day before the rest of the league solidified their spots in Birmingham, Ala.

Wichita State earned the No. 2 seed over Tulsa because the Shockers split their series against top-seeded South Florida, which bested the Golden Hurricane during their home-and-home this season. 

The Shockers ended the regular season at 21-10 (their most regular-season wins in the last six years) and 13-5 against league opponents.

WSU’s potential opponents include No. 3 Tulsa (25-6, 13-5 American), No. 6 North Texas (18-13, 9-9), No. 7 Florida Atlantic (17-14, 9-9) or No. 10 Temple (16-15, 8-10). It has beaten all four teams this season, but split the series with the Golden Hurricane and the Owls from Boca Raton.

The step-ladder tournament format begins Wednesday and runs through Sunday at Legacy Arena in Birmingham. 

Wichita State’s first game will be at 4 p.m. CST Saturday and can be streamed on ESPN2. Sunday’s championship game is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. CST on ESPN.

“What I’m happy about as a coach is you always see the holes that need to get fixed,” head coach Paul Mills said following Saturday’s win over FAU. 

“I’m happy that we get a little bit of extra time to make sure that we’re doing the things that lend itself to winning,” he continued. “You’re going to have to have some wrinkles (to iron out) just because all these teams know each other so well.”

For the players, they see the same value in getting an extra week to prepare for a game.

“We have time to focus on our recovery and game plan,” senior forward Karon Boyd said. “(We get to) watch to see what all the teams do and get the game film. A lot of time to rest our bodies and prepare mentally for the game ahead of us.”

Boyd explained that the extra time to rest will be “extremely important” for the Shockers. Some teams will have to play five games in as many days to reach the championship game, but Wichita State would play just two. Having fresh legs is a real value this time of year.

“A lot of teams don’t have that (extra) week,” Boyd said. “They have to play multiple games to get to the semifinals and then the championship, and we have less amount of games to play.

“We know that’s taxing on their bodies, so they’re getting tired, and we have more time to be prepared than they do.”

The Shockers’ path is now clear: Two wins stand between them and a conference title. Now it’s up to them to take advantage of the extra time they earned.