Fred VanVleet is usually found quietly sitting by himself with his headphones on. The best way to describe the freshman guard from Rockford, Ill., is intense. 

“He wants to beat you in whatever he plays in, whether it’s in my pool in the summer, playing horse on the basketball on the side of the pool,” Wichita State men’s basketball coach Gregg Marshall said. “He got angry with my daughter Maggie one time when she was his partner in the shuffleboard.”

VanVleet isn’t mean. In fact, he’s a genuinely nice kid that’s very humble during interviews. 

But much like the rest of his teammates and his coach, VanVleet simply hates losing. 

“We strive to win and we compete every day and there are sprints for the losers, and Fred is a winner,” Marshall said. “I had total confidence in him being on the floor at the end, and I’m stoked that he, Ron (Baker), Tekele (Cotton) are so young in our program.”

Baker, a redshirt freshman from Scott City, Kan., has been one of the better stories this season. An injury sidelined him for much of the year, and he only returned to the court a week ago at the Missouri Valley Tournament in St. Louis. 

“Those 21 games were a long 21 games,” Baker said of the time he missed. “I’ll just say that.”

In the five games Baker has played since his return, he has averaged 10.2 points a game, including 16 in the Shockers’ NCAA Tournament win over No. 1 Gonzaga on Saturday. 

Add in Cotton, a defensive mastermind that shut down Pittsburgh’s leading scorer in WSU’s second-round win on Thursday, and sophomore Evan Wessel, who is currently sidelined for the season with his own injury, and you have a core of underclassmen that will make the Shockers a factor for years to come. 

It was VanVleet’s play down the stretch against Gonzaga that was the difference in the game. The freshman calmly hit shots with the game on the line, looking more like a veteran player than he really is. 

And now these young players have led the Shockers to the Sweet 16 and are a victory over La Salle from the Elite Eight—and they are just getting started. 

“What does it say about the future of our program?” Marshall said about Baker and VanVleet’s play. “Those are the two guys making most of the big shots at the end.”