WICHITA STATE (1-0) vs. WKU (1-0)
Thursday, Nov. 9 | 6:30 p.m. CT
Wichita, Kan. | Charles Koch Arena
 
TV: ESPN+ (Shane Dennis & Bob Hull)
Radio: KEYN 103.7 FM with Mike Kennedy & Dave Dahl
 

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Throwback Thursday - Wear your vintage Shocker apparel and get ready to be taken back in time as the Shocker Sound Machine and DJ 4 The Win play all the classic hits of past decades.
Ticket Offer - Two (2) General Admission Tickets for $30 (becomes available for purchase 48 hours prior to game time)
Student Giveaway - Shock Block T-Shirt presented by Altitude Apartments (First 1,000)
 

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OPENING TIPS
• Wichita State is right back at it Thursday night when the WKU Hilltoppers come to town for a 6:30 p.m. tip on ESPN+.
• This marks the sixth meeting all time between the two schools and first since 2013. Wichita State has won the last two meetings, but the Hilltoppers lead the series, 3-2.
• Wichita State is 4-0 all time when playing on Nov. 9.
• Wichita State opened the season with a 76-59 home win Monday night vs. Lipscomb. Colby Rogers scored a game-high 20 points and Quincy Ballard notched his first career double-double. Rogers made his long-awaited Shocker debut after sitting out last season due to the NCAA's transfer rules.
• Rogers' 20 points tied for the 5th most in a Shocker debut in school history.
• Eleven Shockers saw action vs. Lipscomb, including four transfers making their Wichita State debuts.
• Three Shockers (Joy Ighovodja, Henry Thengvall and Trevor McBride) all made their collegiate debuts vs. Lipscomb.
• Since 1992, Wichita State teams are 29-2 in season openers.
• The Shockers opened at home for the 20th straight season. They've won 27 of their last 28 home openers with the lone loss coming in 2018 to Louisiana Tech. They're 60-8 in the Roundhouse and 99-18 all-time in season openers.
• Wichita State has one more home game this week before hitting the road for the first time this season at the Myrtle Beach Invitational.
• First-year head coach Paul Mills has only four returning letterwinners, and welcomes seven newcomers to the 2023-24 roster.
• Kenny Pohto (8.7 ppg, 5.7 rpg) will be a focal point as the only returning starter from 2022-23, and the only Shocker that has been at Wichita State for more than two seasons. He and junior guard Xavier Bell are the only returners to play in at least 30 games a season ago. Bell will see his role change this season into one of the team's primary ball-handlers.
• Wichita State currently has 10 players on scholarship eligible to play in 2023-24 and two walk-ons.
• KenPom ranks the Shockers 115th nationally in its preseason rankings and 80th defensively.
• Wichita State returns only 20.3 percent of its scoring from a season ago, having lost its top four scorers. Pohto is the only returner to average more than 4.0 points per game. Craig Porter Jr., James Rojas, Gus Okafor and Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler exhausted their eligibility, and four others exited via the transfer portal.
• Wichita State has only two true freshmen on the roster in Joy Ighovodja (Nigeria) and Yanis Bamba (Canada).
• The 2022-23 Shockers ranked 230th in adjusted tempo, but that will most certainly change under Mills' leadership. His Oral Roberts squad was 40th in tempo last season.
• Wichita State ranked near the very bottom in the NCAA when it came to 3-point shooting a season ago. Converting on just 30.9 percent of its attempts from beyond the arc, that ranked 324th nationally. Mills' Oral Roberts squad on the other hand attempted nearly 400 more and shot 36.5 percent, which ranked 56th in the country.
• Oklahoma transfer, Bijan Cortes, had his NCAA waiver denied and will sit out at least the first semester. There is still a chance he could have a waiver approved for the second semester. In two seasons at Oklahoma, Cortes averaged 2.6 points, 1.5 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game. He appeared in 59 career games with the Sooners and was a career 50 percent 3-point shooter. In his final season he posted career highs of 3.2 points, 2.0 assists and was 13-of-27 from beyond the arc.

OPENING NIGHT    
• Wichita State has won 75 percent of its season openers all time (88-29, .752) and over 80 percent (64-15, .810) in the modern era.
• Wichita State is 20-1 in home openers since Charles Koch Arena's 2003 renovation. The lone loss came in 2018 to Louisiana Tech.
• Wichita State is starting its 68th season at the Roundhouse (1955-Pr.). Shocker teams have lost just eight home openers during that span (60-8, .882).
• 40 seasons ago (Dec. 1, 1972), Antoine Carr set the school record for most points by a freshman in his Shocker debut (19 points). He dunked five times in the first half of a 76-61 win over Northern Michigan.
• Wichita State's highest-scoring varsity debut came Dec. 1, 1972 at Oregon State when Bobby Wilson put up 29 points. Wilson went on to play parts of four NBA seasons with the Bulls, Celtics and Pacers.

MONDAY MADNESS    
• Wichita State has won 11 straight games that happen to fall on a Monday. The Shockers were 2-0 on Mondays a season ago and haven't lost on a Monday since Nov. 22, 2010 against UConn in the Maui Invitational.
• Before last season, Wichita State had not played on a Monday since November of 2017.
• The Shockers made it 11 in a row in the season opener vs. Lipscomb, which happens to be their only game on a Monday in 2023-24.

SCOUTING WKU  
• WKU opens the 2023-24 campaign in year one of the Steve Lutz era. Lutz has compiled a 48-23 record in his third year overall as a head coach.
• WKU won its season opener on Monday night vs. Kentucky Wesleyan, 90-64.
• Four Hilltoppers reached double figures, led by Brandon Newman with 14. In total, eight different players scored at least 8 points.
• Babacar Faye recorded a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds in only 7:14 of playing time.
• WKU shot 56.1 percent from the field and forced 22 turnovers.
• Lutz begins his tenure as head coach for the Hilltoppers having led Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the last two seasons to consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and the program's first ever NCAA Tournament win.
• With Lutz at the helm, the Islanders won two tournament championships and one regular-season title.
• WKU's roster features six returners from a squad that went 17-16 a season ago and welcomes eight newcomers.
• WKU was picked to finish third in the CUSA Preseason Poll behind Liberty and Middle Tennessee State who tied for first.
• Dontaie Allen and Brandon Newman were named to the CUSA Preseason All-Conference Team.
• Allen averaged 13.9 points and 4.8 rebounds in 2022-23 - his first season with the Hilltoppers after transferring from Kentucky.
• Newman joined the Hilltoppers this summer as a transfer from Purdue. The Valparaiso, Ind. native appeared in all 35 games for the Boilermakers in 2022-23, starting in the final six contests of the season. While at Purdue, Newman averaged 6.0 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game while netting 35 3-pointers.

ALL-TIME SERIES VS. WKU    
• Wichita State is 2-3 all time vs. WKU in a series that dates all the way back to 1941.
• WKU and Wichita State have split the series in the four games played in Wichita.
• The most recent meeting came in November 2013 in the second game of the season of Wichita State's magical 35-1 campaign. The Shockers defeated the Hilltoppers, 66-49 in front of a sellout crowd in Charles Koch Arena.
• Fred VanVleet paved the way with 17 points, five rebounds, three assists and four steals.
• Wichita State's suffocating defense held Western Kentucky to 49 points on 28.6 percent shooting (18-for-63).
• On March 19, 2005, Wichita State registered its first ever win against WKU, edging the Hilltoppers, 85-81 in the NIT Round of 32. The game was played in the Kansas Coliseum.
• Jamar Howard had a team-high 22 points.

NON-CONFERENCE NOTABLES    
• Wichita State could potentially face three first-time foes in the non-conference slate, all three are in the Myrtle Beach Invitational field (Coastal Carolina, Liberty and Vermont).
• Liberty (CUSA), College of Charleston (CAA), South Dakota State (Summit League) and Kansas (Big 12) were all picked to win their respective leagues. Norfolk State (MEAC) and Western Kentucky (CUSA) were picked second and third in each of their preseason polls.
• The Shockers' will play three road or neutral site games against teams that finished inside the Top 50 of last year's NCAA NET Rankings (at Missouri - 47, vs. K-State - 19 and vs. Kansas - 9).
• Wichita State has won eight of its last nine non-conference true road games, dating back to the 2019 NIT run. The Shockers only loss came a year ago in Manhattan vs. Kansas State. • Wichita State's non-conference slate sends the Shockers to Columbia on Dec. 3 to face Missouri.

INTERNATIONAL FLAVOR    
• Three of Wichita State's 14 players on the roster this season hail from international countries. That ties for the second-most on a season roster in school history. Only the 2012-13 team had more (4 - Chadrack Lufile, Nick Wiggins, Kadeem Coleby, Ehimen Orukpe).
• Yanis Bamba (Canada), Joy Ighovodja (Nigeria) and Kenny Pohto (Sweden) are the foreign Shockers on the team.

MILESTONE WATCH    
• Colby Rogers is just 95 points away from 1,000 for his career. He scored 490 in two seasons at Cal Poly and 395 in his lone season at Siena.
• Jacob Germany needs only 5 points to reach 1,300 career points.

CR4 - CERTIFIED SNIPER    
• Shockers fans have been chomping at the bit to see Colby Rogers in action since he arrived on campus in 2022. During his sophomore campaign at Siena, Rogers attempted 170 three-pointers and converted on 42.9 percent of those tries. That percentage was top 70 in the country.
• During that 2021-22 season at Siena, Rogers played in 28 games and made multiple three-pointers in 22 of those contests. He finished the season with multiple triples in each of the last 13 games.

A SHOCKER WIN WOULD...                                                                     
... Make them 2-0 for the 47th time in the program's 117 seasons.
... Make them 5-0 all time on Nov. 9.
... Give Paul Mills 108 career coaching victories.
... Run their record to 1,659-1,245 all time.
... Be their third straight win in the series vs. WKU.
... Make them 3-3 vs. WKU all time.

A SHOCKER LOSS WOULD...                                                                     
... Make them 1-1 to open a season for the second straight year.
... Make Paul Mills 1-1 as Wichita State head coach.
... Drop their record to 1,658-1,246 all time.
... Make them 2-4 all-time vs. WKU.

UP NEXT: FRIENDS
Sunday, Nov. 12 | 1:00 p.m. CT
Wichita, Kan. | Charles Koch Arena
ESPN+ | KEYN 103.7 FM