Men await emerging stars in early going

The Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet era ended with a second round exit in the NCAA Tournament last season, but Wichita State still remains the favorite in the Missouri Valley Conference this season, according to the MVC Preseason Poll.

The Shockers garnered 37 of 42 first-place votes to earn the top spot in the preseason poll and look to defend the MVC regular season title for the fourth straight year.

WSU, however, is attempting to reboot after losing five seniors from the 2015-16 season.

“We’re a very inexperienced team,” head coach Gregg Marshall said. “Mostly due to the fact, I guess, we have 4-5 veterans. The rest will be playing for the first time for us. They’re not all young, we have a couple of junior college players.”

The Shockers have added five newcomers to the roster and will have redshirt freshman Landry Shamet to lean on. Shamet saw action in three games last season, averaging 8.7 points per game, before a stress fracture sidelined him for the rest of the season.

According to redshirt junior Conner Frankamp, the new players are coachable and willing to learn from Marshall as the season progresses.

“They’re listening to coach (Marshall) as good as they possibly can,” Frankamp said. “It seems like we keep improving every day and hopefully that continues through until the games start.”

The Shockers used their once every four years foreign trip when the traveled to Canada in August. WSU managed to go 3-1 on the trip, with their only loss being to the six-time defending Canadanian national champions Carleton.

WSU showed more of their inexperience in their exhibition game against Augusta, giving up a 16-point halftime lead and letting the Jaguars coming within one point with 4:01 left to play. The Shockers were able to hang for a 73-67 win.

“We kind of lost our focus a little bit,” redshirt junior Shaquille Morris said. “Our team, we have a problem with playing great at first and then they get us back. But that’s something we’re willing to fix. We got to fix that.”

Saturday’s game gave fans a preview of who would be carrying the load for the team this season. Morris came out strong in the exhibition win, leading with a team-high performance of 24 points. Morris averaged 6.8 points per game last season and started 29 games, earning his way to the preseason All-MVC second team this year.

Shamet scored 12 points with seven assists and only one turnover in his first game back since his stress fracture. He scored 13 points in his collegiate debut, but was limited to 10 minutes against Tulsa due to foul trouble.

Shamet said playing a college basketball game for the first time in almost a full year helped him gain confindence.

“(Playing) was a good challenge early on,” Shamet said. “I like that challenge. That kind of got me going early.”

Along with Shamet and Morris, other standout players in the game and at practice, according to Marshall, are sophomore Markis McDuffie, junior Rashard Kelly and junior Zach Brown.

McDuffie was the first freshman at WSU to win the MVC’s Freshman of the Year award since 2002, earning his way onto the conference’s preseason All-MVC first team. Kelly averaged 4.1 points per game and 3.6 rebounds per game to provide the Shockers with depth off the bench last season.

Brown was a regular starter for last season’s team, averaging 6.7 points per game and coming down with an average of three rebounds per game. His 14 points against no. 25 Utah helped WSU to a 67-50 win over their only ranked opponent of the season.

“We talked as a staff in front of the team,” Marshall said. “Each coach on a secret ballot wrote in the three guys that tried to do it the way we like it done as close to every day, every practice as possible, and those were the only five names that came up on the ballot.”

The Shockers start their regular season against South Carolina State at 8:30 p.m. Friday at Charles Koch Arena.