Men's Basketball | 10/8/2025 3:32:00 PM

By Paul Suellentrop
 
Keandre Kindell stopped playing his son in one-on-one basketball about nine years ago. The score didn't matter, but playing on bumpy backyard dirt did.
 
"This guy was too fast," he said. "He knew how to dribble on the craziest atmospheres, like rocks and grass. I slipped on some rocks and scraped my knees up. I couldn't do it."
 
A bumpy path to the basket never dissuaded his son.
 
Learning to play basketball on a rocky surface is one of many obstacles Wichita State junior guard Dre Kindell dealt with as he traveled from the cut list in junior high in Cincinnati to junior college to Wichita. At no point did he allow bad bounces to knock him off track.
 

"Dre's will-power – if you tell him he can't do it, he'll do it tenfold," his father said. "He's not going to quit."
 
The Shockers scrimmage Drake at 1 p.m., Saturday at Koch Arena. Tickets are $20 with proceeds will be split between the Wichita Children's Home and UJUMP.
 
Dre Kindell, a transfer from Barton Community College, is a 5-foot-11 point guard who can't wait to play games in Koch Arena.

"You need what is often referenced as a 'PHD,' – poor, hungry and driven," Wichita State coach Paul Mills said. "He never felt like he had arrived, even though he had a national championship title to his name. He never felt entitled. He understands the work that's required."

Last spring, after his season ended, Kindell drove 109 miles from Great Bend to Wichita early Friday mornings to work out by himself, or with Barton teammates, on the court for a few hours. He drove back to Great Bend later that night.
 
"I was just trying to get a feel for the arena," he said. "I was just so excited to be here. When I got an opportunity to play in an arena like this that is so beautiful, I could not stay out of it."
 
When he didn't want to drive at night, he slept on a couch in the locker room.
 
"I worked out four or five times," he said. "I turned the lights on at like 3 a.m. and worked out again."
 
That 218-mile round trip gave him time to think about his path to NCAA Division I basketball.
 
"That's his hunger to get better," Mills said. "He obviously had a gym in Great Bend."
 
It started when he and his family decided football presented too much of an injury risk and he switched to basketball. He got cut from his sixth- and seventh-grade teams. He and his friends found a hoop and backboard on the street in his hometown of Cincinnati. He learned to dribble in his backyard without benefit of a smooth slab of concrete.
 
He made the team as an eighth grader but didn't play as much as he wanted. Transfer rules and COVID interrupted his high school career. He walked on at Lamar (Colo.) Community College, but a coaching change left him without a roster spot.
 
After a year at Elite Academy, a prep school in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Kindell went to Barton.
 
"This has always been a dream," he said. "Growing up, I didn't know if I would have an opportunity to play with the best. My journey was hard."
 
Kindell's desire made it possible. He was not, his father said, the child he had to push to practice or work out.
 
"He would wake you up to take him," Keandre Kindell said. "That's Dre."
 
Kindell found a place to get his career rolling at Barton. His ball-handling and quickness impressed Cougars coach Jeremy Coombs.
Last season, he earned honorable mention All-American honors after averaging 15.8 points and 5.1 assists for the Cougars, who went 26-9 and advanced to the second round of the NJCAA Tournament. As a freshman, he averaged 9.7 points for Barton, which won the national title.
Mills wants to use that speed to create offense and bother opposing ball-handlers. He sees Kindell as the type of defender who can deny the point guard from taking an easy pass after a Shocker basket and disrupt the timing of the offense.
 
WSU coaches check in each fall with Kansas junior colleges and word came back on Kindell from former assistant coach T.J. Cleveland.
 
"He said (Kindell) was faster than anybody in the gym," Mills said. "We often say, 'free throw line to free throw line is guard time,' and he can really put a lot of pressure on the rim and allow other people to get out and run."
 
Last week, Barton practiced at Koch Arena on its way to a jamboree in Oklahoma. Kindell talked to the team about hard work and what it takes to move to the next level of basketball, topics he discusses in his biographical series "Pro Dreams," on YouTube.
 
"Talent only takes you so far, but he's got a love for the game," Coombs said. "His biggest thing is his love for the game, how he's always in the gym. I told my guys that's probably got a cot somewhere here in the arena."
 
Paul Suellentrop writes about Wichita State athletics for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.
 
Season tickets are on sale now, and season ticket renewals are available as well. To purchase, visit GoShockers.com/Tickets, dial 316-978-FANS (3267) or stop by the Shocker Ticket Office, located inside Charles Koch Arena, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.