WICHITA STATE (7-1) at MISSOURI (6-2)
Sunday, Dec. 3 | 2:00 p.m. CDT
Columbia, Mo. | Mizzou Arena
 
TV: ESPN2 (Tom Hart and Dane Bradshaw)
Radio: KEYN 103.7 FM with Mike Kennedy & Bob Hull

OPENING TIPS
• Wichita State heads to SEC country to face the Missouri Tigers Sunday afternoon in front of a nationwide audience on ESPN2.
• A win would move the Shockers to 8-1 and would be the best start since 2019-20 when they also started the season 8-1.
• Wichita State is 16-9 all time when playing on Dec. 3.
• Wichita State is 1-5 all-time vs. Missouri with the lone win coming in Columbia in 2021. This is the fourth and final matchup as part of a four-year agreement. The visiting team has won each of the first three games.
• Missouri is 6-2 this season, having won three straight games since a home loss to Jackson State on Nov. 19.
• Wichita State is coming off an 80-68 win over Richmond on Wednesday.
• Wichita State's win against Richmond (No. 80 in KenPom) is the team's highest-rated victory on KemPom since defeating SMU (No. 58) at Charles Koch Arena on Feb. 5, 2022.
• Wichita State committed a season-low six turnovers and all five starters scored in double figures. Wichita State shot a season-high 51.6% from the field.
• Harlond Beverly has 15 assists to just one turnover in the last two games.
• Colby Rogers has made a three-pointer in all eight games this season and multiple in seven of the eight. He ranks 19th nationally in FG attempts, 36th in 3-pt attempts, 42nd in 3-point FGM and 45th in field goals.
• Rogers eclipsed 1,000 career points on Wednesday vs. Richmond with a game-high 19 points.
• Xavier Bell is the team's second leading scorer at 15.4 points per game and has handed out a team-best 28 assists.
• Bell and Rogers have scored in double figures in seven of the eight games this season, and they both have a pair of 20-point games to their name.
• Wichita State ranks 3rd nationally in defensive rebounds per game, 10th in rebounds per game, 13th in fouls per game and 19th in rebound margin.
• Quincy Ballard ranks 3rd nationally in blocks (22). He had a career-high 7 vs. Norfolk State. Ballard's 7 blocks were the most since Ehimen Orupke vs. Southern Illinois on Jan. 9, 2013.
• With a win, Mills would move to 8-1 and be the second best nine-game start in school history. Wilmer Elfrink won his first nine games in 1920.
• Wichita State celebrated the 20th anniversary of Charles Koch Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 29.
• 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.
• 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.
• Ronnie DeGray III is another transfer who is currently sitting out due to NCAA transfer rules. The former Missouri Tiger  and UMass Minuteman is a two-time transfer  and awaiting a decision on an NCAA waiver to see if he will be eligible to play this season in the Black and Yellow.

POINT BEVERLY
• Harlond Beverly has played the role of distributor over the last two games. Since missing the Saint Louis game with an ankle injury all he's done is dish out 15 assists to just one turnover.
• In the first five games he had a combined 11 assists and 16 turnovers.
• "Honestly, I feel like me sitting out and watching the game against Saint Louis really helped me," Beverly said. "It's just very different when you're playing (vs.) watching. I had to watch our offense instead of being in the offense, and I feel like that helped me a lot."

LEAD GUARDS
• Colby Rogers and Xavier Bell have formed a potent 1-2 scoring attack for Wichita State through eight games. Rogers leads Wichita State in scoring at 16.5 per game and Bell is right behind at 15.4.
• The duo of Rogers and Bell make up 39.7 percent of Wichita State's scoring as they've accounted for 255 points.
• Both players have scored in double figures in seven of the first eight games and they each have a pair of 20-point outings to their name.
• The duo is coming off a combined 36-point night vs. Richmond (Rogers - 19, Bell - 17).

SCOUTING MISSOURI
• Led by second year head coach Dennis Gates, Missouri enters the matchup at 6-2. The Tigers are one of six teams in the nation to rank in the top 50 nationally in both blocks and steals.
• Gates led Missouri back to the NCAA Tournament in his first season at the helm. The Tigers went 25-10 in 2022-23, finishing tied for fourth in the SEC.
• Gates arrived in Columbia after a successful three-year stint at Cleveland State. He won 50 games and two Horizon League regular season titles.
• Missouri was picked to finish 9th in the SEC Preseason Poll after losing a pair of starters and seven letterwinners off last year's NCAA Tournament team.
• Mizzou is one of five schools in the country featuring three 7-footers on its roster: Connor Vanover (7-5), Mabor Majak (7-2) and Jordan Butler (7-0).
• The Tigers also feature a lot of experience. The average age of the Tigers' roster is 21.2 years old. Overall, the Tigers boast nearly 1,100 games of Division I experience.
• Sean East II leads the Tigers with 16.1 points per game and 22 assists. He's scored 20 or more four times this season.
• Noah Carter leads Mizzou in rebounding (6.6 rpg) to go with 13.0 points.
• Nick Honor rounds out the double figure scorers at 11.4 per game. Honor has made 21 three-pointers so far this season and is shooting 46.7 percent from beyond the arc.

ALL-TIME SERIES VS. MISSOURI
• Mizzou leads the all-time series, 5-1, helped by three home wins in the early 1950s.
• After a nearly 70-year hiatus, the schools revived the series in 2020. This is the fourth in a four-game agreement that concludes in Columbia this season.
• The visiting team has taken each of the first three matchups. Mizzou won in an empty Charles Koch Arena in December 2020. Wichita State returned the favor in November 2021 with a 61-55 win at Mizzou Arena, only to see the Tigers escape with an 88-84 overtime win in Charles Koch Arena in 2022.
• The 2020 trip to Wichita wasn't the Tigers' first appearance in the Roundhouse. That came in the first round of the 1978 NCAA tournament, when Norm Stewart's Tigers fell in double-overtime to Utah.

TIGER TAILS
• Wichita native Caleb Grill is in his first season in Columbia with the Tigers. The well-traveled grad student spent three seasons at Iowa State (2019-20, 2021-23) and one season at UNLV (2020-21). Grill's father, Chris, played basketball at Wichita State from 1996-98.
• Grill led Maize High School to a 24-1 record as a senior and was the Kansas Male Athlete of the Year.
• He was a standout on the football field as well, setting school passing records with 3,122 yards and 45 total touchdowns.
• Playing for his fourth school, grad student Connor Vanover is at Missouri by way of Oral Roberts, Arkansas and California.
• Vanover was a key piece of Paul Mills' team at ORU last season, helping the Golden Eagles to 30 wins and Summit League regular season and tournament titles.
• He was the Summit League Defensive Player and Newcomer of the Year, ranking 2nd nationally in blocks.
• After spending two seasons at Indiana, Kansas City, Kan. native, Tamar Bates arrived in Columbia through the transfer portal.
• Sophomore Aidan Shaw is another Kansas native that crossed the border. Shaw hails from Overland Park and Blue Valley High School.

IT JUST MEANS MORE
• Since the 2005-06 season, Wichita State is 14-8 against opponents from the SEC with victories in four of the last six.
• Wichita State is 10-6 away from Charles Koch Arena against SEC opponents during that span.

BETTER CALL PAUL
• Head Coach Paul Mills has the Shockers at 7-1 through his first eight games on the bench.
• Mills is off to the best coaching start at Wichita State since Gary Thompson was 7-1 in 1964. Only Wilmer Elfrink has had a better eight-game start to a career.
• Wichita State's 7-1 start is the best since 2019 when the Shockers also started 7-1.
• Since 2000 Wichita State has started 7-1 nine times: (2019, 2017, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2009, 2006, 2005, 2004).

POHTO POWER
• Kenny Pohto has produced back-to-back 20-point outings, including a season-high 25 on 9-of-13 shooting vs. Norfolk State on Nov. 25. He scored 23 in a win over Saint Louis on Nov. 19 to close the Myrtle Beach Invitational.
• He's reached double figures in each of his last three games, averaging 19.3 points per game during that stretch.
• He also dished a season-high five assists in the Norfolk State victory and was a perfect 6-of-6 at the line.
• Pohto is shooting 66.7 percent (22-for-33) from the field over his last three games.
• He's averaging a career-high 13.9 points per game this season on 54.4 percent shooting.

ACCESS DENIED
• Wichita State has an elite rim protector in Quincy Ballard. His season was cut short in 2022-23 due to injuries, so he's only played 18 total games in his Shocker career. In those 18 games he has 36 blocked shots. Twenty-two of those have come in the first 8 games.
• Through 8 games his 22 blocks rank 3rd nationally and his 2.75 blocks per game rank 12th.
• He has multiple blocks in all but one game this season.

A SHOCKER WIN WOULD...                                                                     
... Make them 8-1 and would be the best start since 2019-20 when the Shockers started 8-1.
... Improve their road record to 2-0 this season.
... Make them 17-9 all time on Dec. 3.
... Give Paul Mills 114 career coaching victories.
... Run their record to 1,665-1,246 all time.
... Make them 2-5 vs. Missouri all time.

A SHOCKER LOSS WOULD...                                                                     
... Make them 7-2 this season.
... Make Paul Mills 7-2 as Wichita State head coach.
... Be their first road loss of the season.
... Drop them to 16-10 all time on Dec. 3.
... Drop their record to 1,664-1,247 all time.
... Make them 1-6 all-time vs. Missouri.

UP NEXT
GAME 10: VS SOUTH DAKOTA STATE - INTRUST BANK ARENA                                                                
• South Dakota State is 3-4 in Eric Henderson's fifth year at the helm of the Jackrabbits.
• This is Wichita State's annual game downtown at INTRUST Bank Arena. Wichita State is 8-4 at INTRUST Bank Arena.
• The Shockers will look to snap a two-game losing streak at their home away from home.
• South Dakota State will make its first appearance at INTRUST Bank Arena.
• Wichita State leads the all-time series vs. South Dakota State, 3-0.