[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Thanks very much for listening. Wichita State Director of Athletics Kevin Saul is our guest as we Prepare for the 2026-27 academic and athletic year and we'll take a look back at 2025.
Kevin has completed his fourth year at Wichita State. He's overseeing changes in coaches, significant facility upgrades, academic triumphs and updates in many ways in which the department operates, all while we are watching college athletics undergo a big transition period. For an in depth look at the past year, Wichita State's annual report of the athletic department is available on goeschalkers.com we will hit on many topics included in that report. If you want more details, I would encourage you to check that out. So, Kevin, let's start with a look back. What are a few of the topics, top markers you would really point at and say wichita State's on the right track.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I appreciate it, Paul. It's good to be with you. I would say, you know, we're always going to evaluate our program in three specific areas.
Our core values. Are we operating with character and integrity? Are we really good stewards of the resources that we've been given?
And are we in the constant pursuit of knowledge, whether that's our student athletes, our coaches or our staff? Do we have coachable spirits? All of those pieces, that's the first and foremost, is those core values. And then I think, I think you have to look at our student athlete developmental pathway and we talk about a very intentional and prioritized pathway for developing young people as students, as persons, as players, and then ultimately as professionals, they do actually need to land jobs and be successful contributors in society and all those great things.
And then you look at the competitive piece. And so that's the overarching lens that we evaluate our success through.
As you know, in the annual report, we break down academic accomplishments, community service goals and competitive accomplishments. So I'm sure we can kind of walk through each one of those very briefly.
You mentioned we're going into year five and when we started in the summer of 22, we established a five year strategic objective. And within that objective we outlined academic goals, community service goals and competitive goals. And the academic goals. At that point in time, Paul, if you remember, we said, okay, we're going to look at this 10 semester snapshot. We said, at that point in time, I think we were 30, 34 consecutive semesters of a 3.0 GPA or better. And we said, hey, we got to continue doing that. Because that's now a minimum standard. What are we doing the next 10 semesters? What are we pushing for? And we said, hey, we wanted to be a 3.0. 10 out of 10. We wanted to be a 3. 3. 5 out of 10 semesters. Because we'd only done that twice in the history of our program. And we wanted to be a 3.4 once because we had never done that before.
And so fast forward through eight semesters. Now with one year left, we're eight out of eight on the 3 0. We are eight out of eight on the 3 3.
We are four of the last five on the 3 4. And I believe we are two of the last three on the 3.5. So the 3.5 was something that we really didn't even contemplate when we first started. And I think that's just a testament to our student athletes and our coaches for doing a great job. We had set out a goal originally of about 1000 hours of community service. And I think last year we got just above 20. Almost 2,200 hours last year. So we've more than doubled that goal. Really important, because we believe strongly that if the Wichita community is going to contribute and support us, we've got to do the same.
So that piece is really important. And then we outlined a really aggressive championship goal of 15. We wanted to win 15 championships.
We have gotten to 12 so far. So we've got another three to win to check that box. And that'll be a great accomplishment if we can get another three this academic year. And the one I think it's important for us to recognize, maybe where we've fallen short a little bit, too, is the we want to be a top 100 program.
We said we wanted to do that twice in the first five years. Maybe a little aggressive, maybe a little bold, but not dissimilar to the academic goals. I remember having a conversation with Gretchen about the 3.4 and saying, look, if we fall just short of that, but we're continuing this trend of growth and improvement, nobody will see that as a failure. And so we want to be top 100. The growth is impressive. It's 101 places in the Directors cup here in the last two years. We were 247 to 151 to 146 this year. And so the goal is top 100. But we've made some really significant strides. So that's kind of big picture how I look at the last year or so.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: The Director's cup is tough because you could Have a really good year and finish second or third in the American Conference. But you don't get points just for conference finishes. So I guess that speaks to. When you talk about that being an aggressive goal you've really got to be churning up in the NCAA play.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: That's exactly it. And the margin is so thin, Paul. So last year we finished 146th. We basically were one team qualification for an NCAA tournament.
And we were a few individual points, team points. So you have to be a finalist at the track and field National Championship. And so we had one or two of those 10th, 11th, 12th place finishes that finish in the top nine. You're going to score team points there and you score Directors cup points. So the margin between where we were last year And a top 100 program is one more team qualifying for the NCAA tournament. Maybe two individuals finally.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: So Sydney Brummett and the coaches and the athletes seem to do a good job with the community service. People are probably familiar with working at things like Meals on Wheels, Food Bank. I helped maintain the orangutan cage at the Sedgwick County Zoo. Do you have a favorite? Is there a community service thing that you've participated in or that you really enjoy Wichita State helps out in?
[00:06:18] Speaker B: There's a few. One in particular, the Giving Tree, I believe is what it's called. And this is an organization that I believe took over kind of an older elementary school that had been phased out of USD 259's facility plan. And the basic premise of it was for new parents and new mothers to come in and not only be able to shop at a store at ridiculously discounted prices, whether it's the children's clothes, shoes, diapers, whatever the case may be, all these elements that were contributed to from the community. But there were also classes and education on how to be good parents and, you know, how to learning about how to rear young people and those sort of things. So I really, really enjoyed that one.
But we've gone to several different places.
We've gone to Starkey, we did the Giving Tree.
A lot of our student athletes will pack food for Meals on Wheels or delivery or something like that. I really think it's important for all of us to understand that we serve a bigger purpose.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: So all those numbers and statistics, of course, are really important. But then there's a lot of interesting stories. When you've got an athletic department full of coaches and athletes who are some of the human stories, or an athlete or a coach maybe that you've made a connection with that maybe people haven't seen.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Well, I think I'll start with an athlete. And really this is a two year story. I know we've talked about Brooklyn Leggett on our volleyball team her first year with us. She came from a Division 2 school out in Colorado, I think Mesa, Colorado.
She was with D2 transfer and very talented.
That worked her way into a significant starting role on our volleyball team.
Ended up winning the conference championship when we hosted the tournament at home and we went to the NCAA tournament. That was our first NCAA tournament in seven years in volleyball. But throughout the course of that process, the story behind the story is that Brooklyn went through really two unimaginable crises with family.
She became a team leader throughout all of that. She was a first team all AAC performer last year.
And I distinctly remember after they won the championship on our home floor and her family is there who had gone through those really difficult times with her.
And the American Athletic Conference had their streaming, their desk, their broadcast desk over on the side of the floor. And I remember looking over and seeing this unbelievable smile on Brooklyn's face. And I thought, this is really what it's all about. The championships and those pieces are really important.
The journey is maybe more important to the transformation of our young people, but I think maybe even more so important. And then all of that was the adversity that Brooklyn went through to get to that spot number one and then to show the immense joy that she showed after that game. And I've got a picture that's framed up in my office that has a quote on it. But the basic premise is perseverance and I think that's a really good story you can look at. We've got several coaching stories, if you will. I think newly hired Jacob Eddins last year in our women's tennis program.
It's always hard coming in and being a head coach for the first time, adopting basically a roster that had been around for a little while. So there's certainly some advantages in that, but there's cultural shifts and changes that have to happen as a part of a program and for them to finish the way they did and have 19 consecutive matches. One, they swept the state of Iowa with Iowa and Iowa State. They swept the state of Kansas with Kansas and Kansas City State just had an unbelievable run there of 19 straight.
They won the doubles championship for the American Conference in the fall. We finished second, lost in the finals in the team championship.
Received our first at large tournament NCAA tournament bid since 2018, I believe.
So just a really awesome story as Jacob was working through the transition of coming to Wichita, being a first time head coach, getting his family here, which took some time and all those things, he just did a really remarkable job.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Also beat Nebraska. Right. I guess there should be some sort of agricultural trophy or something that Wichita State could claim. Wichita State recently announced a three year extension for men's basketball coach Paul Mills. Contract.
Shockers, of course, finished second in the American played in the nit.
People know that the record has improved each season under Paul. Shockers are climbed up the conference standings. I think you can look at really some big improvement by athletes such as Xavier Bell, Dylan Petit, TJ Williams, Will Berg under this coaching staff. So what do you see? Give fans a look about what you see in how Paul Mills and his coaching staff operates.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Well, I think first and foremost it starts with you can go all the way back, you know, three years ago and think about the interviews that Paul and I had as we were going through the search process and how we aligned on our core values.
You can look at some of the analytics that are really important to that process. Like, you know, he was around the Baylor program that went from arguably one of the most downtrodden basketball, college basketball programs in history to a national championship 14 years later and was a part of that building process. There's a lot of lessons that are learned in journeys like that, you know, and then you go to a very difficult, at that point in time, Oral Roberts job and he was able to retain players at a level in the nil world that you might be a little surprised by at Oral Roberts, no disrespect to that university or their program, did a really nice job of retaining players there, improved the season win total each one of the five years after his first year.
And so you feel like prior performance predicts future behavior and so feel really blessed that that he's with us.
Hi, this is Rick Yiuma, president of Wichita State University.
Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different guests from Shocker Nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
So there's all these competitive pieces that you can point to. And Paul, I would tell you, you could equally point to just a large volume of metric elements as well, whether that's offensive efficiencies, defensive efficiencies, individual player development and rankings and efficiencies and all those things. There's just a lot of things that we look at. But at the end of the day, Paul is a partner in this process.
He understands the weight that comes with this job and understands the pressure that comes with it and the expectations that come with it and how we rely on this program financially for our overall department. He embraces all that. He enjoys doing it. He does it with a great attitude. He's got great family, and we're really excited about all those things. So feel very firmly that direction determines destination and being able to retain 10 of 15 of our players and do so basically three and a half years after our roster resource number was zero.
We've worked really hard to build that number and to give our coaches a pool of dollars to retain. And that retention is super important to Shocker Nation. Our fans really enjoy, as most fans do, getting to know players and keeping them here. And that's been one of the detriments of the new age of college athletics. But I think we're bucking that trend when you can say that 10 or 15 guys are coming back and I think they're doing a nice job. So really excited about being able to continue our journey with Paul and his staff.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: And that's my next topic, retention. You mentioned men's basketball, softball.
Asher Moore, all conference player, American player of the year. Kinsey Woody, all conference pitcher. Riley Neihardt, several other key contributors. We should mention Sydney Dunning, volleyball. She would have been one of the top attackers in the American before an injury sidelined her for these this season. So what are those type of retention victories? What do they tell people about Wichita State?
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Well, I think there's a couple of things going on there. Number one, I believe that we have a great group of head coaches that are great leaders of the young people in our program.
I believe that our student athletes in our program believe that. We talked about this on the podcast before Paul.
We regularly survey our student athletes and we ask them 41 different questions twice a year, trying to gauge where we are with our peers, growth over time.
If there's any concerning trends as it relates to their experience and their development here at Wichita State. And I will tell you that probably a dozen of those questions relate to head and assistant coaches.
And our student athletes rate their coaches incredibly high.
In fact, I think two years ago they were rated at or above in all head coach and assistant coaches categories related to our peers. And our peer group was 100 Division 1 institutions and 40 of those were Power 5. So at that point in time, you know, our student athletes think really, really highly of their experience. So it's not surprising when you've got good Leaders of young people, and then our young people are pleased with their experience.
That you have an in when it comes to retention conversations doesn't mean we're going to win them all. Doesn't mean we're going to bat a thousand. But I do think we have a group of of coaches that will outperform the national trends for retention.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Bowling coach Holly Harris also signed a contract extension recently.
In two seasons as an NCAA program, the Shockers have just done fabulously well in bowling. Finished second last spring, reached the Final Four in 2025. Why has that program moved into NCAA affiliation so seamlessly?
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Well, because it has a decades long, as you know, Paul, decades long history of success as a club program.
We've got, what, 11 national championships on the women's side and the club, really what is occurring now these last two years as an NCAA varsity program is just an extension of what has occurred here over the last, you know, 30, 40 years.
Program started with unbelievable young women like Karma Mason. And you know, I get in trouble naming names because we're going to leave people out, but it's been a successful program for a really long time. And what amount of pressure exists for somebody like Holly to transition into an NCAA championship era? And she's handled it with grace and with class. She's made two consecutive Final Fours, she's got two regional championships as a result, she's got a conference champ championship from our first year and then obviously last year making the final match. And there is a growth and maturation process because that final match format wise is very different, pressure wise is very different. And so you have to go through that learning and growing. But there is no doubt in my mind that Holly has this program on a pathway towards one of our next national championships at Wichita State. And that is the goal. It's resourced very well and she's proven to be a very great leader of these young women in our program. So we're excited to extend her and
[00:18:35] Speaker A: really a fun group to be around. I think they really enjoy being part of the athletic department and they certainly have had a lot of success.
Other big news this summer, the opening round of the NCAA tournament, what we formerly would have known as the first four in Dayton is coming to interest bank arena for the next two years.
What does that tell people about how the NCAA regards Wichita State State and its ability to pull off a big event? And you've just got a short timeline to get that thing cranking.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: There's no doubt about it. I think what it is is it's A testament to Wichita in general.
And when you start to break that down, you can look at the city of Wichita and Mary Wu in Sedgwick county and you can look at Interest Bank Arena. You can look at our sports commission, Susie Santos, Josh Howell and all those guys that, that do a phenomenal job hosting events. And then you have to look inward and you have to look at senior associate AD Brad Pittman and his staff. This is a place coming from an athletics director that spent 12 years of my career in facilities and events and championships and capital projects. This is a place that has been as aggressive and successful of any place that I've seen hosting external events. It's built a reputation with the ncaa. And so I think all of those things together create an environment where the NCA sees very little risk in positioning one of their premier championships here in Wichita. And I'm confident that we'll do a fantastic job. And the goal is to keep this thing for a couple decades like Dayton has. And so we're working really hard at that and look forward to next March.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: The men's basketball schedule is moving along. We've got University of Southern California in Tahoe, New Mexico, Kansas State, Drake, Boise State, among others.
How do you regard the schedule and what can you tell us about maybe what's still to come?
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a firm step forward competitively and I think that's what Shocker Nation would expect. When you retain 10 of 15 from a 24 win season. Obviously you can take a step forward from a scheduling standpoint. There's a lot to accomplish within scheduling.
Obviously we are a program, we want to position ourselves for an at large, not just an automatic qualifier for winning two or three games in March. We want to be an at large. Well, what does that take? That means you've got to really dissect your 13 non conference games.
You've got to have a pretty specific ratio of home games versus away from home games, whether those are road or neutral.
You've got to sprinkle in some quad ones and to show that strength, to show the intent to schedule and play the best. So Southern Cal in Tahoe is clearly a quad one. We are super close to being able to announce another quad one here in the coming days. You've got two home games against New Mexico and Boise. Remember we went up to Boise and I think lost by three last year in a really tough environment. Those are going to be top 50, top 55 games. So those will be quad two games.
You know, you go to Loyola, Chicago, you mentioned K State and Drake in Kansas City.
There is a formula a little bit here. You want to make sure that you've got premier really good games at home, but you also want to make sure you can maximize net and sometimes that's playing some neutral site games that will help you with that net ranking system in terms of your games. Because at the end of the day, we're trying to get to playing basketball in late March and early April and so really excited about the schedule. We should have it finalized the non conference portion here in the next week.
And then we do expect the league to come out with their pairings, just the matchups, the home and roads. We won't have dates or times or networks yet, but we do expect them to come out with that here in the next couple, three days. As we know, our league does what's called preferential scheduling and they will poll the head coaches to kind of rank the teams preseason and then they will give the most advantageous scheduling to the top four teams. And as you look at whether it's Torvik or some of the other prognosticators that have some credibility in this space from a preseason standpoint, we're sitting in the top two in the league in nearly everything that you look at. So we'll have a great league schedule and there's a lot for a fan base to look forward to. I think we're. Paul, I think we're going to be at either 17 or 18 home games in Charles Koch arena, inclusive of the scrimmages and the exhibition. So it'll be a packed season ticket for sure.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: There seems to be a shift in college basketball with the exempt tournaments, the holiday tournaments that I'll ask you to explain. People are maybe backing off some of going to Maui or Atlantis. Is the USC game in Lake Tahoe an example of this? And how can you kind of explain that to people?
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah, so in the old days, I guess I would say in the last 5, 10, 15, 15 years, these events have been called MTEs, which is short for multi team events. Because when the NCAA sets out the number of games that you can play, historically it's been you can play 29 or 30 regular season games, but if you go to an MTE, you can play an extra game.
And so there's been some quality, I guess you will in that to be able to go to a location and get an extra game that others can't. At the end of the day you can always find one of those MTEs, you know, whether it's in Fort Myers or Galveston or, you know, you name it. And so we've done that here.
We, as we know, we went out to the Bahamas last year.
We were in Orlando and played Minnesota and Florida at the ESPN MTE a couple years ago.
It is a relatively difficult, I think, tests of basketball because you're going to play back to back days and in the Bahamas last year we went back to back to back days and there's not very often you're going to do that other than maybe the conference tournament to play three consecutive days. So you've seen this movement where MTEs have become two game MTEs with maybe a break in between.
And then you're starting to see a lot of, a lot of teams are foregoing the MTE and they're buying opponents to come play at their place to try and maximize that net and that schedule strength for the NCAA tournament. So that piece is evolving. And instead of doing an mte, we've got a couple of premier games that'll be away from Charles Cook arena that we're really excited about.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: So USF hired Chris Mack, who had a lot of success at Xavier, was most recently at College of Charleston.
Wes Miller most recently at Cincinnati, is at Charlotte, did a really good job at UNC Greensboro before that. So those two seem like serious people. They're not going to take jobs where they can't compete and get into the NCAA Tournament. Is that a good sign for the American?
[00:25:21] Speaker B: I do think it's a great sign for the American, both on the men's and women's side. You're starting to see some really high caliber coaches get in and you know, along with those stories at South Florida and Charlotte, you know, the coaching circles and the administrative circles, you're hearing about a lot that's being invested, whether it's roster, resources or facilities. And all those things are great because at the end of the day, the American Athletic Conference has got to transition away from being a one bid league.
I serve on a task force, a working group of probably 15 folks in the league, administrators and coaches and league administrators trying to dissect what it's going to take for us to become a consistent multi bid league in the American. And it has to do with a lot of different things, minimum investments, scheduling criteria, accountability associated with scheduling criteria and all those things. So a lot of effort, time and energy from a lot of different folks trying to improve the basketball product in the American.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: Wichita State is rebuilding Cross Crossland Stadium. It's been fascinating as the West Grandstand is coming down Here.
New tennis facility breaks ground in the fall. Softball is on its way to moving into much needed new locker rooms. Team operations. The Wadsworth family team center. Is that what we're calling it?
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Team operations?
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Team operations, yes. The Wadsworth family give fans an update on the facilities.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Man, we got a lot going on. So my office is over on the lower concourse of Charles Koch arena on the east side over there, right next to Crossland. And here for the last, what, two weeks, Paul, they've been going through the demo process. So they chopped up the press box in 12 different pieces and hauled it down. And if you go out there right now, they got a couple of different bulldozers and backhoes and all kinds of equipments kind of pulling that thing down. So I think we're two column lines in from the north side as demoed. That'll be another two or three weeks before that superstructure is fully down.
And then you'll see another two or three weeks as they're digging down below existing grade. To get into utilities, to get into foundations. They're going to have to go about 4ft deep.
So a lot of work to be done.
State track is just around the corner next May and we'll have seating in place.
We will either have restrooms or concessions ready to roll or we'll have some temporary options. But just as we said three years ago, Paul, we are scheduling this thing around state high school track to accommodate those guys and really excited about what that facility can do. We're having conversations about football. We've got a agreement we're working through with USD259 to bring a lot of their events here to campus. And that's great for campus recruitment and university recruitment as well. So a lot of great things going there.
Softball. I was writing a. A card this morning that was thanking one of our generous donors to softball. And I recounted that since 2021, between the 10.56 million dollar practice facility and Wadsworth family operations center, in addition to the new field, the new lights, the new dugout, the batting cages that were all done in 21 and 22, it's about 14, $15 million of investment in our softball program and done a lot of studying about where we're positioned in our softball program, not only operationally, but how we compensate our coaches and our assistant coaches and what our facility looks like and all those pieces. We're in a very good position to be expecting consistent NCAA tournaments and so really excited about that. We've made some improvements over at Eck with new lights, new seating, pitching and progress performance lab.
And then we've got the largest single gift of any category in the history of our university in this tennis facility that's going to go at Ignite K96, which is up in the northeast corner of wichita there by Topgolf. It'll be just kind of behind Academy Sports there. $18 million tennis facility that's going to break ground in October this year. It'll be ready about a year construction. October, November of 27, it'll be ready to go. But it's 12 outdoor courts, six indoor courts. Be a really premier facility.
We have acquired the men's American Athletic Conference championships will be in that facility in 28.
We have also gotten the track and field outdoor championships in 28 that will be in Crossland. And then obviously we have the softball American Conference championships that will be here in the spring of 27.
We will also have cross country championships in the fall of 27. So my point is that all of these pieces are connected. All these facilities give us an opportunity to elevate economic development of the area to host championships and do some really great things for Wichita State.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: You've got a basketball meeting coming up, so I'll get you out of here with one last quick one. Athletic department fundraisers working hard on a $500,000 matching gift for the We Fight for Wichita fund that helps revenue sharing, roster enhancement. What should fans know about this?
[00:30:26] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think the biggest advantage is we've got a very, very generous donor who's given our largest gift to roster resources and a half a million dollars and has done so because that individual wants to empower Shocker Nation to understand that when you give a dollar, you're going to get a dollar back. So every dollar that you give, you're going to have double the impact.
And so we've got a matching campaign up to a half a million dollars, really, really important for our program as we continue to focus on retention.
And then we've got some other great things that we're going to announce here in the next month or so. Paul, in terms of fundraising that's associated with our tennis facility and a few other items that are going on. So we got some very, very generous people that are jumping on board. And I think for Shocker Nation as a whole, the way you can help is get your season tickets. Call in 316978 fans, get your season tickets. We're about 280, 300 seats in the lower bowl from being sold out in the lower Bowl.
We are 260 new season tickets this year on top of the 600 new we had last year. We look to renew it about a 90% or better. So we're headed in the right direction from an atmosphere at Charles Koch arena and certainly that helps support our program. So just would encourage folks to call 316978 fans and get your season tickets Today.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Fall sports are underway at Wichita State. Volleyball is in the midst of two a day practices. They play an exhibition at Omaha on August 15th. They're home for another exhibition against UMKC on August 22nd. Home opener August 28th versus Stephen F. Austin. Chris Lamb has assembled a whopper of assembly schedule. Kansas twice, Uni twice, Missouri, Missouri State, Colorado. And that's all before conference play begins in late September. And then the JK Gold Classic September 5th and fall practices for baseball and softball are on the way. Kevin Saul, thank you for your time.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Thanks so much for having us and go Shockers.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse podcast courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
[email protected] Hawkins gonna go to work on Washington and it was dug out of there by Bijan Cortez.
Lob to Beverly seven point lead at the under eight timeout here at Charles Cook Arena.
