[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Thank you very much for listening. We appreciate your time. Our guest today is Wichita State Director of Athletics Kevin Saul. He is joining us with a pleasant task of talking Shocker basketball. He and and a lot of people in this athletic department, they put in a lot of hours working to help WSU basketball improve and this season showed that that time and that effort is paying off.
To refresh your memory, The Shockers finished 24, 12, 135 and in second place in the American Conference. That's their best finish since the 2021 championship.
Wichita State advanced to the quarterfinals of the National Invitation Tournament with wins over Wyoming and Oklahoma State.
Kevin, what did you like best about how this basketball season unfolded? What pops to mind?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: First, I think you have to start with people. You know, I think I'm a little biased, Paul, but I think we've got a great head coach and staff that do a really marvelous job of bringing quality people into our program. And the student athlete development is very good.
But at the end of the day, I think you win because of the guys you have in your locker room. And we had some phenomenal guys in the locker room.
They love to compete with each other. I think that was one of the driving forces late in postseason was they just wanted more opportunities to compete together.
They loved representing Wichita and Wichita State and it's something to where, you know, I wish I could bottle that up and spray it all over the community of Wichita because, you know better than anybody, what Wichita craves is people that will be here for multiple years that are really invested in representing Wichita and Wichita State. And that we had that group this year. And I think that somewhat bucks the trend of what seeing is you can build really, really meaningful, genuine, authentic relationships with guys like Kenyon Giles and Caron Boyd that are here for a year. And I think they did a really, really nice job. That's what I'm going to miss the most, is the quality of guys that we had this year.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Paul Mills talked a lot about that during the season, that he liked this group. He was trying to get a group that loved basketball and was enthusiastic. So what's your observation? I think everybody's interested, how do you do it these days? What is your thought on how this coaching staff was able to get this good group of.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: And we've talked about it before, Paul. It's more challenging in today's environment because the windows of time that you have to research a young man's character, integrity, and all those core values is much more short, it's shorter, it's more condensed.
And so what I've seen this staff do is they have a profile in their mind of the type of player from a character standpoint. Obviously there's the technical skills and abilities and you've got to recruit a talented pool.
But when it comes to the cultural piece, what I've seen is these coaches will do their work way ahead of the pool, the transfer portal, and they will evaluate character wise, a pool of people very, very quickly, and they'll do it ahead of time to really understand. And when you get into evaluating character, it's everything. You're having conversations with the sphere of influence with that young person. You're watching videos, how do they respond to criticism.
They spend a lot of time on the phone talking to people about young men that they bring into the program. And I think that formula worked, right? You look at Kenyon Giles, you look at Karon Boyd, you look at Dylan Bati. Man, the progress that Dylan made this year, you know, early in the year was really kind of outside the top six. And then all of a sudden he becomes a really critical role player for us towards the end of the season and very productive. So again, I think it's, you're not going to bat a thousand. But I do have a lot of confidence in this staff's ability to identify high character people because I think it takes high character people to do that and prioritize that they've done a nice job with it.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: What did you see three years ago during the hiring process for Paul Mills that came to fruition this season?
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Well, a lot of things, Paul, you know, we spent, I don't know, two or three opportunities that we had to talk virtually face to face and spend a lot of time researching, obviously the style of play and the success and all those things.
Couple things that come to mind. I remember this would have been the last regular season game at home.
We had reached a milestone in terms of the number of wins for Paul throughout three seasons.
And I remember walking out post game of the locker room with him and I walked him through the. The list of three accomplishments that were achieved with that particular win. And we talked about, you know, where he stood at all time in terms of head coaches in this program. And while he has respect for our history, that didn't really move the needle for him.
We talked about a couple other things. But the piece that really got him going was the fact that, you know, he spent six years at Oral Roberts that now in his third year here. And when you look at Oral Roberts, years two through five, every year got better, every year got better. And you're seeing that is the case here at Wichita State as well, going 15 and 19 and 19 and 15 to 24 and 12. And he looked at me and he said, that is what I'm interested in, is steady progression so that the market has confidence in what we're doing and that what we're doing is working and it's validation with players and your community and all those things. I saw that I also saw.
And I think there's a little bit of providence and protection in this component. But when we were talking three years ago in the interview process, he shared the story of Max A. Smith, the point guard that he had kept for three years through two recruiting cycles. And those two recruiting cycles included nil at the time.
And the dollar figure that he was able to keep a player of that caliber was significantly low, shockingly low.
And I just remember connecting the dots in that conversation to say, you know what? These players are finding value in something other than the dollar if they're willing to stay at Old Ro. And, you know, in that fourth year, I believe it was go to the Sweet 16, take out Ohio State and Florida and then lose to Arkansas by eight.
And then two years later, have an undefeated Summit League schedule and go to the NCAA tournament again, lose to Duke in that first round. And then we hired Paul. I just. There's that value judgment really hit me like these players are seeing something other than. And so when you project that onto Wichita State, you know, we're going to be resourced. Well, we're going to be in the neighborhood and. But it also behooves us to have people that will be able to outperform resources. And I just felt like Paul outperformed resources at Oral Roberts, and I think up to this point, he has done so as well. We're probably not going to be number one in the league in our roster resources.
But you look at, you know, this year, Paul, we were preseason picked fifth and we finished second, and we're beating teams that we have a pretty good idea, have more roster resources than we do, and that's what it's going to take to be successful here. And I think that's a parallel that you saw at Oral Roberts that came through in the interview process that is coming to fruition now.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Most memorable game for you.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Man, that's a great question.
We ended up playing 36 of them, and, boy, what a great question that is. Paul
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Let me come back to that.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: I would say the win at Memphis.
The win at Memphis was a big one for us because we had not. Correct me if I'm wrong, we had not swept Memphis since we joined the American.
And I think we'd only beat them at their place once. And that was a year where the road team won.
Memphis beat us here, and we beat him there. That, to me, felt like a turning point because very, very talented. Memphis is really talented, likely has more resources.
But to me, the synergy that was involved in our team and beating them and coming, you know, gave up a lead and then. And then finished it out really strong right at the end. I thought that was a really big catalyst moment for us.
The Tulsa win in the tournament was a great win.
The Oklahoma State win was a fun win because you got an opportunity to relax with some minutes left. Right. Because you were ahead by a lot. There's so many. It's hard to pick. It's like, who's your favorite child?
[00:09:27] Speaker A: The Memphis one is a good one. I think it's important to be able to win on the road in college basketball, and that was a nice statement. Is there a dunk, a sideline celebration, a big shot that you would say?
That's the kind of memory. That's the kind of moment that I want our fans to think about all summer as they're waiting for basketball season to roll back.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah, there's so many of those that come to mind. And at home games, I'm either in the tunnel behind the bench or I'm in a table behind Weston, who sits right next to the bench. So I get to watch a lot of bench behavior. And I love watching our guys celebrate their teammates. I think that's when you really have something.
You really have something going. You could point to the endless Kenyon Giles three pointers at critical spots. Right. You could point to Caron taking a really critical charge in an important moment of the game.
I thought the game against Tulsa in the conference tournament and the game against Oklahoma State, that I thought Will reached a different level in terms of, like, physicality and physical aggression in the game and to be able to do it in a controlled way. So I just saw different moments with different players.
But again, you know, the last game of the year is always the toughest one because you go around the circle and the coaches always address the players in the locker room, and it has a tendency to be very emotional. And I remember assistant coach Ken Paulino kind of went across the room and he had the stats in his hand and he looked at every single guy individually and I would say 8 to 10 of the guys had career years this year. So it was fun watching all those guys progress and do some really remarkable things. I think the last piece that I would add is the four consecutive largest home games of the year. And really seeing Shocker Nation get excited and get some genuine happiness and joy was really meaningful to me this year.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: And you mentioned Kenyon Giles just had a fabulous season all conference. Why do you think he grew into such a popular figure?
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Boy, I think it starts with, you know, folks might have some skepticism about a 5, 9510 guard that shoots, you know, 40 plus percent in the Southern Conference previously, but he's got a really engaging personality.
He's also very steady in game. You know, there were moments where he would get really, you know, pretty fired up, but you would see that for a second and then he was dialed right back in. You know Paul, that a lot of the times on the defensive end of the floor he was defending somebody that was bigger and stronger and longer than he was. And so I think really scrappy from that perspective. But you could tell, man, he loved his teammates and he was really, if you were close to the floor and you could see Kenyon's eyes and the non verbal communication that was going on between him and his teammates and between him and the bench, he knew what Coach Mills was trying to do. And so in that way I think he was a coach on the floor, but just a really, really intelligent, very much likable, a pleasure to be around and a fierce competitor. I don't know how you'd ask for anything more other than maybe, you know, if Kenyon Giles is a 636 4, I'm not sure he's here. You know, we were blessed to have him. What a great young man.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: He and Karon Boyd both really made a big impact in their one season as shockers, definitely. So Wichita State went 14 and four starting in mid January. That started with a win at South Florida. As you mentioned, we saw the crowds increase as the season progressed.
When did you start to really get the feedback from the fans that they were buying in that they liked the direction of this team?
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah, we ran a.
Well, I think first and foremost, you know, my cell phone is all over the community, so I get texts a lot after games and folks appreciate progress and they like to see improvement. And so I get a pretty steady stream of feedback.
A lot of it constructive, most of it positive, sometimes it's negative. And that's where the Passion comes in and that's okay. So I get a steady stream of that. But I will tell you that the week that we hosted, we hosted South Florida and Tulsa at home in that same week.
And the external staff that you're keenly aware of, Madison and Cole and the ticket office and our fundraising development folks, are constantly thinking two, three, four games ahead. And so we ran a ticketing package that week that had somewhere between 10 and 12, 50 per ticket for those two games. And we're sitting at second in the league and we're fighting for second in the league and Tulsa's nipping at our heels. And so I think the community started to realize we're going to finish in a really good spot. We have a chance to finish in a really good spot. And that week is what triggered those four consecutive largest crowds of the year to finish out.
And so I think that one was really important. And then you follow it up with what a special day that Mike Kennedy's celebration was against Temple at home. And Mike brought in 1500, 2000 people that might not already be there were there for Mike. And so to continue that win streak. And at that point in time, I think we had just surpassed 8,000 for the temple game.
And then we were able to eclipse that at least one more time. But you know the Wichita community better than I do. As soon as you throw a big party and you get them in the gym and you perform well and they, they resonate with the style of play and the personalities and feel like they're being represented well, it's going to grow from there.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: Paul Mills has talked several times about there is a seat in the upper rows of Koch arena that he checks each game to see if it is filled. Do you know where that seat is?
[00:15:31] Speaker B: I don't know where that seat is. And I've joked around with him that maybe next year I'll pick out 17 individual seats on that upper row and pregame I'll go sit up there in each one until I find one. But no, he's.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: We, we.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: I. I've joked around about that with him and, and we've joked about that at other institutions. You know, you know, when you get in that back row right up against one of those support beams filled up, that's probably one of those. But no, it was awesome to see Shocker Nation respond this year and just really excited about building on that momentum in the off season.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Can we get some confetti, some balloons? When somebody sits in that seat for the first time, I feel like it needs to be marked in some way.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: We should do that. We should do some sort of an automatic trigger when you, when you lower the seat, the seat down on that particular seat that the. It pops some, some confetti or balloons or some version of that. Then we'll know. But yeah, we're excited.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: I feel like he's mentioned it enough that people would. People might get that. Okay, here's your opening. Tell people about season ticket renewals. What do fans need to know about getting their receipts reserved for next season?
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So we launched renewals on March 24.
At the end of last week, folks should have received in the mail their hard copy invoices. We kept pricing the exact same. That will be four consecutive years that we've been flat pricing or maybe a little bit down.
We went up in one particular group of seats last year. But anyway, the pricing we think is in a really good spot.
The renewal due dates are of course, later in the summer. We have members of our staff, we have about nine people, myself included, that all have a portfolio of season ticket holders. And we're reaching out and chatting with folks just to gauge their experience, see what questions they have. But getting renewed early is going to be really important because we do have enough interest where we're creating waiting lists for season tickets. We've sold just within renewals, we've sold an additional 30 or 40 season tickets. I've already had a couple of launches here in the last couple weeks with folks that are currently not season ticket holders that want to get in because they're really excited about where we are.
Last week we had the great announcement that Will, Dylan and TJ were coming back. And we certainly hope we'll have a couple announcements here in the next 24, 48 hours on some additionals. But there was a fourth flurry of calls into the ticket office the afternoon that those three announced that they were staying.
And so there's going to be a lot of interest and we are so blessed and appreciative and thankful for that. So just would encourage our season ticket holders. Make sure you pull that envelope out of the mail that's got woo on it.
Pay attention to those things. There shouldn't be a whole lot of changes from what you saw last year.
And we've got folks that are standing, waiting, ready to take your order and help you with any questions that you may have. And we're just very appreciative of the support.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: And Noah Hill, the freshman center, joined them today. You were probably working hard today while I was on social media. But yeah, he put out announcements. So we have the four. Four of the big men are coming back. So, yes, the basketball world moved quickly from the NIT in Wichita State's case to retention and recruiting.
Strong start with Will Berg, TJ Williams, Dylan Petit and now Noah Hill. So that first trio, boy, they announced quickly. The portal is not open yet.
And those three announced all on the same day. So I think we can learn several things about the program from those decisions. I'll run them by you and you can give me your feedback. First, I'd say it's got to be a demonstration. WSU is in a good place with the revenue sharing. What used to be may still be nil money. I know that need never goes away, but do you feel pretty good about where Wichita State is now in that area?
[00:19:32] Speaker B: I feel better, Paul, in the sense that when we came here, we were a year into nil at that point and we had not done a whole lot here.
And so I felt like we were really behind the eight ball. When I came in July of 22, because nil started in July of 21, we pushed really hard, set up the infrastructure, did the education. We didn't raise our first dollar significantly towards nil until January 6th of 23. And from that point forward, boy, we've been blessed with our ability to grow that into a competitive number for our program.
And never going to be complacent, as you mentioned, because you always need to continue to grow. The market will grow from one year to the next.
But we are sitting in a much better position than we have in the last three or four years. In fact, based on the data that we have, we feel like we're in that top two spot in our league, certainly a spot where we should be expecting league championships for sure.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: Secondly, and I got this this morning talking to Emily Hebert, WSU's reputation among agents and athletes for meeting its commitments, for sticking to its word, is really, really good in the revenue sharing area. I really hadn't considered that until recently. Why does that reputation matter, man?
[00:20:55] Speaker B: It's really important.
And I'll go back to a subject that we covered earlier, the Interview with Paul 3. Three and a half years ago, he told me when we've been journeying together for maybe a year now, or a year, let me rewind that. We had been together for about a year and we were talking about that initial interview and he said he was sold on Wichita State when we were walking through the Shocker Way and the core values that are a part of the shocker way. Character, integrity, knowledge stewardship. And I explained character as understanding right from wrong. And integrity is aligning the behavioral habits to your understanding of what's right and wrong. And that really applies in this space. Paul, the agents are a part of the deal now, and the circle of influence is agents and family members and AAU coaches and all those things.
And there are, man, I don't want to say the majority, but we hear a lot of horror stories about kids being told, numbers that don't end up coming to fruition, institutions that are screwing around with promises and dollars and those sort of things. And Paul and I are very much aligned that when we started our journey, hey, we're going to do the right thing and we're going to do what we say we're going to do. And we feel like that will shine a bright enough light in the space that people will notice that. And Emily's right.
We have agents that have given us feedback to say that I don't have to worry about which testate when I send a player there, because you guys are executing exactly what you're telling us you're going to do. And we've had players that have communicated that, having come from other institutions, coming here is like, well, you guys make this easy. You tell us exactly what you're going to do and how you're going to do and when you're going to do it, and you execute. And that piece is really, really important to me and it's important to our staff. Emily and I work very, very closely on those numbers and distributions and all those sort of things. Thing so critically important to both Paul and I that we, that we carry through our promises. Because what ends up happening is agents want to go to. They want to send kids to play places they're going to develop. They want to send kids to places that aren't going to hassle them with the administrative components and just doing what's right. And I do think that there's a reputation there. We've had two or three different agents tell us that, boy, you guys are going to get. You guys are going to be an outlier in this space, the way you manage your business.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: It would also seem to indicate those three athletes, and now we can add Noah Hill to that. They feel good about WSU's trajectory, winning coming in the future, and they want to be a part of it. How much does that kind of momentum factor into retaining players?
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Winning always helps. Right. Because it's validation.
Right. Whenever, you know, I've not been A coach, but obviously been around it a lot. But when you're talking about behavioral change and you're improving on technical skills or abilities or whatever the case may be, you've got to see some success to help validate the process in making change, because change is uncomfortable. And so to have some success, that really validates the discomfort that you go through. And change, I think, is really important. And everybody wants to be a part of something that's bigger than themselves and part of the world winning. And I think that that piece is critically important. So do you retain more when you're 24 and 12 than you would if you were 15 and 19? Yeah, probably.
Probably. And so that's where I think the beauty of this thing, Paul, is that guys like Kenyon Giles and Karan Boyd will be responsible for the success of this program for many years to come because they have committed to that steady progression of success.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Okay, I have another marketing suggestion. It's not really my job, but I, you know, I'll just. I'll just throw it out there and let somebody else execute it. There's a fan on social media who attracted some attention. He said he would name his cat after Dylan Bati if Dylan decided to return.
So if we can assume that fan follows through, gets a cat, names the cat.
Can we get a lion? You know, one of those Lion King promotions where you hold it? Yes, you're.
Kevin knows exactly what I'm talking about. Where people in the crowd will hold up a little baby. There's a famous scene from the movie. So next marketing meeting you're in, throw that out there.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: We need to do a Dylan Batist bobblehead that everybody holds up and does the deal.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Another fine. Yes, another good idea. We're cranking out the marketing ideas. Can you drop any hints about scheduling for next season?
[00:25:37] Speaker B: I can. And maybe one more point on the retention piece, Paul, before we go to scheduling, I don't want to walk past this because I think the current collegiate athletics environment is hard to swallow at times for folks. And I know it is in Wichita because I've had lunches and I've engaged with so many different folks. That said, man, I don't necessarily care for the environment that we're in. Right.
These kids are transitioning in and out of these programs one year after the next, and the transfer portal and the payments and all those things.
I do think that what's happening right now is we have four individuals who have made a conscious decision that they're going to commit to Wichita State before they Even explore any options in the portal. The portal opens up on April 7th and today is April 2nd and we've got four commitments from players. Well, those are four guys whose circles are likely telling them, man, you probably ought to go in the portal and explore your. But they're not. And so we get back to the value piece. What are they seeing value in development?
Coach Mills and the staff, the Wichita community, Shocker Nation, the Koch arena on game day, which has to do with Shocker Nation and the Wichita community. So I just, I want, I say all that to say I want Shocker Nation to pause for just a minute and smell the roses. That we've got four guys that are completely bucking the trend for what's going on in college athletics. Because we've got great people involved and we're playing and representing a great community. And they love doing all those things. Playing for Wichita, fighting for Wichita. I think that's really important for our fan base to understand.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I skipped over the development part of that because as you mentioned earlier, there'd be a long list of basketball players who would say they really improved and their statistics would show it. Why do you think this coaching staff is so good at working with its athletes?
[00:27:39] Speaker B: They care.
I think Coach Mills has a little bit of the secret sauce in terms of how he manages the gas.
We've got five gas that are responsible for working day to day with players.
You always, you go into the gym, whether it's the practice gym up top or into Coke, there's usually always a. A player or two. They're going through individual workouts. That piece is really important.
The statistical analysis is top notch.
The game prep and scouting is top notch. And the organization amongst the full time staff, the gas, the student managers, how they chop up scope of work and get it all into a funnel that spits out a really, really concise and good game plan. Scouting, all those things, I think it's really important.
And the piece you can't walk by is Coach Mills and the staff have authentic and genuine relationships with the guys and there's nothing off the table. You know, they'll talk about what's going really well. They'll talk about, hey, this is where we need you to improve if you want to get some more minutes. And so there's no surprises with the guys. It's very open and up front.
And so I think all of those things combined with the fact that we have really good people in the program because we think good people make good players, those are the important pieces. I think that lead to development.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: Okay, back to the scheduling. What can you tell people?
[00:29:07] Speaker B: Well, we are exploring a bunch of different options.
I don't have that file up in front of me, Paul, but I should know that off the top of my head. Obviously we go to Loyola, Chicago. We have Boise State coming in to Koch Arena.
We are looking at probably again, we're exploring a few different options, but there's some two game MTE's that are starting to crop up. There's one out in California, there's one in Florida where you're not playing. 3 back to back to back where you actually play day one, you get a day off and then you play the second day. There may be some value in that.
We're trying to put together a marquee matchup, however we can do that. But obviously as you get better and you win 24 games, those, those, those conversations become a little harder.
But I think, you know, we will be in that 16, 17 game range again for next year.
The NCAA actually authorized three of those exhibition games where you can play a D1 opponent. And so we had two last year. You remember, we hosted Drake here and then we went to Denver and matched up against an NCAA tournament team, Santa Clara. Both of those were great experiences for our guys. We're going to be able to do one more of those. So we're going to be really ready from that standpoint. But obviously we want to maximize the season ticket as best as we can. We'll have a great, great American Conference slate. Because what the American Conference tries to do and make sure Shocker Nation understands this is they will strategically schedule. In fact, that's what they call it. They say, hey, we implement strategic scheduling, which means that the top two or three teams projected in the league will have some of the more marquee matchups. We'll have Holman Rhodes against the top two or three because it behooves the league to do the best job you can do. Projecting strength in your league and then having your top teams play your top teams, because your net is going to, is going to bear that out. So I think it'll be a great schedule. The piece that I think folks understand is that basketball scheduling usually runs year to year, whereas football scheduling year three, four, five years out in terms of what you're doing, doing. And so that process has begun. We do a lot of research.
We study nets, historical nets, a little bit more difficult to rely on that because of the transfer portal. Nowadays we have a significant source of funds where we use to purchase teams to come into Wichita. And so we want to maximize that as well as we can. There's a market for that too, Paul.
Those conversations usually start a little higher than where they land. And if you give it a little time, the market, it starts to come back down. So we're in the middle of that process.
We typically will announce non conference scheduling. Somewhere in that late July, early August range, we would announce our non conference schedule. And then usually the league is, you know, first or second weekend in October.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: There seemed to be a growth in the tournaments, the holiday tournaments, the MTEs with a revenue sharing or an nil component. Is that something Wichita State has looked at?
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah. In fact, we're talking right now about a neutral site game up in Kansas City where there would be an element of that, which is what we had a couple of years ago. So that's always helpful to help you kind of backfill some of your revenue sharing. But there's components of that where MTE's will really help you with either travel, transportation, lodging. There may be a straight stipend, but either way that helps you offset costs. So it's helpful if you can get it.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Let's update fans on three of the projects that are going on around campus for athletics.
Wilkins Stadium. Ground is broken on the softball offices, locker rooms, that area which is next to the indoor right there at Wicklin Stadium. What's the timetable for that for the newest part?
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Yeah, so you've got the indoor practice facility that we just finished up, that's right behind the brand new third base dugout that we did my first year here. Paul. And I think it's important for folks to understand that there's about two and a half, $3 million that went into the softball facility before we even started building the indoor practice facility and then the Wadsworth family operations building.
And so the Wadsworth family operations building has broken ground, as you mentioned.
You'll start seeing steel. They're into site work now. You'll start to see steel go up on that, you know, in the next month or two. We think that's going to be about a 10 to 12 month build.
And so you're starting that in April, probably going to finish in that January, February, March range.
So what we think is either right before the season or at some point during the season, we'll transition, transition our team into the Wadsworth family operations building, which will open up the visitors side or the old home side to our visitors, much like what was done at ECK previously. And you know, it'll end up being a pretty nice visitors space. I mean you don't go to very many softball facilities in our league that have a full visitors locker room and a training room and a those things as well. So that'll be a good setup for those guys. But I am so excited for our softball team to be in that brand new $600,000 dugout, wide deep that's connected to the indoor practice facility, that's connected to a mudroom that has team rooms, locker rooms, coaches offices, conference rooms, all those things.
Really excited for the young women in our program.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: That will definitely be a big step up for softball. So it's fun to walk by University Stadium and see the shockers back out on the on the new nine lane track at University Stadium. Practicing throwing area looks as it. As if it is in its final upgrades. Update people on the track at University Stadium.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah, so basically a three phase project we did the east side a year ago.
New gates, plaza, concourses, seating, pushed everything to the east towards the Devlin entrepreneurial building over there so that we could widen the track to get a full regulation soccer and or football field in there. And this off season we've done the track and ran into some weather. Last summer I think we had 63 days of rain and was a little bit delayed. And so our track team actually this week their first practices out on the track. So it is a beautiful facility. Right now you can walk out there and see the brand new east side. We've got really cool graphics. We have an experiential graphic on the northeast corner that you can see driving up and down 21st, a lot of backlit stuff. The video boards going in here in the next few weeks lighting all those things. So after state high school track in 26, so June 1st you'll start to see the demo on the west side and I tried to get a fundraising component of that where we could just push a button and you could just kind of blow the thing up or demolish it. But anyway they'll start cutting away at that thing and it's going to be most of the summer that they'll be cutting away at the press box and all the steel structure and bringing it down and then we should be into construction, bringing it back up probably in that August. September, September range as well. So beautiful facility and it's just phenomenal to see the changes.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: I ran into Luke Porter who is one of the multi athletes and I asked him about it today and he said yeah, I was running on one of the curves and it was Just really cool, he felt, because of the graphics. He said it just felt cool, looked cool. He just really, really enjoyed it.
[00:37:10] Speaker B: And I ran into one of the young women in our program and she was talking about this. The buoyancy and the softness of the track was very, very noticeable for her. So it's. It's awesome. Those guys have done. They have sacrifice because they've been at the Heskett center since the beginning of indoors, all the way through this first part of outdoors, and just certainly blessed that we've got a resilient group of young people that, that would temporarily be inconvenienced like that. And they're enjoying a really nice facility.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Certainly looks like a really high level track and field facility. Be fun to see all the people out there, especially for state track.
The tennis complex K96 and Greenwich will break ground in the fall. Give us the update on that.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So we're blessed to be a partner in the Ignite K96 area, which is a Starbond district. And we're working with the developers, Family Destination Development.
They will be building The Shockers, an $18 million tennis facility.
That site work will begin here in the next several weeks and then we expect that construction. You'll start to see that structure going up in the late summer, early fall.
And it's going to be a beautiful facility. We're in the design process right now. It's going to be six indoor courts, 12 outdoor courts, ample seating, full team accommodations with team rooms, locker rooms, lounges, nutrition spaces.
We will have offices for both our head coaches, assistant coaches, any instructional pros that might be there. We're really excited soon that we're going to announce a naming gift for that building as well that's going to help us initially purchase all the furniture and equipment that's going to need to be purchased outside of the Star bonds for that. And then also give us a Runway for annual operating for two or three years as we get our feet underneath us and understand what it's going to take to operate that from, you know, MEP and H VAC and all those utility components that will be responsible for operating the building.
But the $18 million gift is, you know, categorized as a real estate gift. And as I was Talking with Tully McGehe, our President of WSU Foundation Alumni Engagement, they did a little research and that $18 million gift at the time was the largest gift of any category in the history of Wichita State University at 18 million. So we're super blessed and just very, very thankful that we are going to have a premier home for our tennis programs who are performing incredibly well this spring. At one point, men and women had combined for 20, 21 straight wins. Our women are ranked 26th. I might be recalling that incorrectly.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: Definitely in that neighborhood.
[00:39:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the men are in that upper 50s range. And so our women are in a really strong position not only to win a league championship, but to be maybe an at large if they don't win the league championship. So we're excited about direction of our tennis program and Dara and Jacob doing phenomenal work.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: We are recording this on Thursday, so if you're listening Thursday evening or Friday morning, WSU's campus is busy, a lot going on. Baseball and softball are at home. WSU bowling is in the NCAA regional in Arlington, Texas. That starts on Friday. Volleyball scrimmages at 5pm Friday at Koch Arena. Free admission, so we encourage you to check out the Shockers this spring. Kevin Saul, thank you very much for your time.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Thanks PA.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: Great insight as always. Thanks 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 always find more roundhouse
[email protected] and they let him pass it up court. Then it gets picked off a long three by Pangos. No good. One second. It's all it is over and Wichita State has beaten the number one team in the nation to go to the Sweet 16.
Go crazy Wichita.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: I know you are.
