Cleanthony Early is hardly perfect, but that’s also what makes him so scary. 

“He’s a pretty bright guy and sometimes he thinks he has all the answers, but he’s got to learn that there are certainly things he can do,” Wichita State men’s basketball coach Gregg Marshall said. “Just play the game. Listen and play. When you do that you are really good.”

There are moments, like in Early’s 39-point performance against Southern Illinois on Jan. 9, that show just how good he can be when it all comes together.

Early, a junior college transfer from Sullivan County Community College in New York, has had an immediate impact for WSU.     

He leads the team with 14.5 points per game despite being only fifth on the team in minutes per contest. 

And all this hasn’t gone unnoticed. On Tuesday, Early was named a Missouri Valley Conference first-team selection as well as the Valley’s Newcomer of the Year. 

“I thought about it. It crossed my mind, but you never really know,” Early said when asked about whether he thought he would be a first-team player at the beginning of the season. “That’s why you go out and work hard for it, and even if you do know, you should know to still go out and work hard for it. But I appreciate everything that is happening.”

Also receiving Valley honors was Carl Hall—last year’s MVC newcomer of the year—when he was named to the Valley’s second team. Malcolm Armstead was an honorable-mention selection. 

WSU was also named the Army National Guard Defensive Team of the Year, despite having no players named to the All-Defensive Team. 

“They just go by stats on that deal. It’s hard to imagine you’ve got the best defensive team…but none of the best defensive individuals. It’s giving coaches way too much credit,” Marshall said. “You can’t tell me there are five better defenders than Tekele Cotton in our conference.”

The conference’s most prestigious individual award—the Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year—went to Creighton’s Doug McDermott. The last WSU player to win that award was Paul Miller in 2006. 

The only major award yet unannounced is the MVC Coach of the Year, which will be announced in St. Louis on Thursday. It’s Thursday when the MVC Tournament gets underway. 

WSU’s success in St. Louis has been dismal, at best. The Shockers have only won the MVC Tournament twice, in 1985 and 1987, before it was moved to St. Louis from Tulsa. 

As the No. 1 seed a year ago, WSU lost in the semifinals to Illinois State 65-64. 

But this is a new team, and despite losing the final two games of the regular season, the Shockers have nothing but high expectations for this year’s tournament. 

“These guys have short memories,” Marshall said. “I’m just going to keep coaching them, try to get them back and see if we can go make some noise in St. Louis. And hopefully we get an NCAA Tournament bid.”

The consensus about WSU’s NCAA Tournament chances seems to be that more work needs to be done. Despite a 24-7 record, inconsistent play down the stretch has left at least a little bit of doubt. 

But the Shockers also know that if they just take care of business in St. Louis, it will all work out in the end. 

“Just keep the confidence. We lost two games going into that, so we have to find our groove again. It’s nothing new. We just have to do what we’ve been doing and try to pick it up from there,” Early said. “Just play tough. Play like we want it. Play hungry and humble at the same time. Play a little angry. Just get it done.”

While the tournament starts on Thursday, the Shockers won’t play until Friday at 6:05 p.m. against the winner of Thursday’s Missouri State-Southern Illinois game. 

Should the Shockers advance past that, they would face the winner of Northern Iowa and Illinois State on Saturday at 4:05 p.m.

Sunday’s championship game will start at 1:05 p.m. and be nationally televised on CBS. 

“Right now we are not playing our best,” Marshall said. “The season ebbs and flows. It really has a lot of ups and downs, trials and tribulations. So we are going to try and get back up from our loss on Saturday and play some of our best basketball.”