Records are meant to be broken — and Wichita State junior guard Fred VanVleet is on his way.

Since 2000, former Shocker basketball player Jason Perez (1996-2000) has owned the all-time Shockers steals record with 222 career steals. The player closest to that record was Touré Murry with 180 steals.

Murry (2008-12) is the owner of the all-time Shockers assists record with 430 career assists.

VanVleet is on his way to breaking both of those records.

His 282 career assists puts him 148 assists behind Murry, and his 104 career steals puts him behind Perez by 118.

With two full seasons left to defend the title of Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year, VanVleet will break these two records if he can keep the same production from his sophomore season.

“Records are meant to be broken,” Perez said. “It’s really not my record. It’s WSU’s record.

“You gotta have a good IQ of the game [in order to break the record] and I believe [VanVleet] does.”

Perez said VanVleet probably won’t think about possibly breaking the record until he is much closer to it.

“As you get closer to the record, you hear more of the hype about it,” Perez said.

“I think if he does it, it’s a great accomplishment. It’s not an easy thing to do.”

With 69 steals last season, VanVleet will pass Perez’s record by 20 steals if he has 69 steals in each of his final two years.

With his 193 assists last year, VanVleet could break Murry’s all-time assist record by the end of this season if he dishes another 193 assists this year.

It would put him ahead of Murry by 45 assists.