[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to the Roundhouse podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Once again, thank you very much for your time. Wichita State basketball coach Paul Mills is our guest. He is here to talk about the non conference schedule and 19 regular season home games. They tell me that's the most in program history. So there will be plenty of opportunities to catch the shockers. We like to say enrollment is everyone's job here at Wichita State University. We also like to say it is everyone's job in the athletic department to get 10,000 plus people in Koch Arena. Paul Mills still has his eye on a seat in the top row. I think Den and Garrick has taped a $100 bill underneath a seat in the top row. So if you get that, if you get that seat, there may be a little reward for you. Paul, let's start by taking us through the timeline of setting up this schedule. Is it an all year thing? Does it come together in a rush at the end of the summer? Give people an idea about the timing of all this.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, Denning. Paul, thanks for having me. Do you really tape a hundred dollar bill up there or this is. He's being facetious.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: I think Paul is drastically overstating my salary.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: So I do tape a note up there and probably within about an hour after a game I'll go up there and take the not note off just because I don't want some random person to find it. But if you had a hundred dollar bill, I'm gonna go up there and start searching quite a bit. But yeah, nobody's ever taken my note. Maybe they've seen it, but they just haven't acknowledged it. So we are excited about the schedule. And going back to your question, is it a year round thing? Is it, you know, deadline driven? Hey, we got a month here to put out the schedule. Let's make a whole bunch of calls. I tell you that it's a little of both, you know, you know, thinking through it. We had the Drake game that we originally scheduled that was probably approached to us last November. Make a decision on it somewhere in January, February. As you can imagine during the season you're pretty focused on that. So that happens. Kansas City probably, you know, when that, when they made the coaching change, we reached out to those guys.
I think that we always do that regionally and sometimes it fits. Whether it be Missouri, you know, I know there was a four year home and home stay in Oklahoma State. Oklahoma, Kansas, Kansas State. Those are usually annual phone calls.
One to gain, gauge the appetite, two, you know, Schedules change. You know, I know from, for, for us are we maintained 18 conference games, but in other leagues they fluctuate. Right. So you get less non conference games. With the expansion of a 32nd game, we've expanded the season by one game, going from 31 to 32. You do reach out to something that kind of makes sense regionally. And it takes both teams agreeing. And so there's a lot that goes into it. And people in this climate, you know, your teams change so much. So there is some things that get done prior to the season, but the vast majority of it gets done after. And I can tell you, like after a recruit commits or somebody you feel really good about, then you're way more aggressive, like, oh, okay, we have an idea about who we're playing. And so outside of those regional teams that I just mentioned, you kind of try to expand beyond that. But definitely during the recruiting, once you have a better idea, this is the makeup of our team. You try to schedule accordingly. We're in a situation to where we have 11 guys back. So when you have 11 guys back, there's more of a known commodity there from what coaches, what you're getting. And sometimes you need to challenge, sometimes you feel you need to kind of take it step by step. I'm not really sure how this is going to play out. So all of that to say there's a lot that goes into it, but the majority of it happens after you have an idea to some degree about your team, as difficult as that may be with all that's going on with attorneys and courthouses nowadays.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: Coach, how involved are you personally in scheduling? How much do you kind of lean on your staff?
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Yeah, extremely involved. You know, you lean on your staff for everything. And I'm very, very blessed here that Wichita State has always had just wonderful coaches who've been in here. And I actually saw Steve Forbes a couple of months ago and I was like, steve, man, it was you. It was Greg Heyer who's won a national championship, it was Chris Jans, and KT was here and just going through a long list. So I'm blessed to have that. And I always tell those guys, like it's a matter of time before many guys on our staff are going to go on and have the opportunity to be head coaches elsewhere. But you really do, just because of their areas of expertise. I mean, to give you an example, Josh got a phone call. Josh Eilert got a phone call about playing what was just an incredible game. It didn't end up on the schedule. But that was something that came through Josh and people reaching out to Josh to see if we wanted to do something.
So you lean on your staff.
Sam Kearns, who is new, handles a lot of that. Nolan McGee handles a lot of that. There are a lot of phone calls that have to get made. I get involved at the end, and usually when I come in in the morning, it's like, have we called so and so and so you. You reach out quite a bit. Scott Drew, when I was with him when I first left, it's been now, you know, a decade. But when I left, he told me, said, paul, he said, I need you to understand that the two most important things you'll do are recruiting and scheduling. Recruiting makes a ton of sense, right? The number one job of a coach is you have to assemble a team, and you need to assemble one that's pretty good.
And then secondly, the scheduling piece never really made sense to me until about year four of being a head coach and one, everybody has a budget, and so you have to be mindful of a budget. But philosophically, how you go about this, I think this is probably last year was a year where philosophically we were able to align with what I believe the schedule should look like for us here at Wichita State. But there is a lot of work that's done by the staff. And then scheduling is pretty important to me. And I go back to the most important thing we do is recruit, and then we have to assemble a team. It really doesn't matter how good of coaches we are. Go back to the old Hank Iba quote that you're not winning the Kentucky Derby with Darth, right? So you have to do a really good job recruiting. And then at the end, scheduling is up there on priorities for a head coach.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: How much do those two work together in that? You can tell a recruit, come to Wichita State, we're going to be playing Kentucky, we're going to be playing Southern Cal. These are the kind of opponents we want to play in addition to American Conference games. Is that a recruiting thing that you use?
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Well, I mean, not really. I mean, to be honest with you, just because you don't know, day in and day out, from our perspective, like what we sell from a recruiting is Coke arena, the level of support that you'll get inside of Wichita. And, you know, we've been able to watch that we had recruits here who were at our final game, and so some of them get to see it. I get that what television does, you can kind of tell, you know, an empty arena versus A loud arena and just how exciting it is. The number of people who mentioned to me, I cannot believe you guys get that level of support for a TBT game is. Is a testament right to what Wichita and how excited Wichita is about seeing quality basketball. And we understand that they'll support.
And you know, I go PJ senior year here after the Sweet 16 year his sophomore year. And then you had coach Turgeon and then coach Marshall's first year and those guys, you know, it was a struggle his senior year as they were getting acclimated to coach Marshall and the situation there. But you look at, you look at the attendance and so we primarily sell the attendance now we would like you name the school that you think is good. We'd like for them to come visit us and then us eventually go visit them in a home and home situation.
But talking to recruiting, does scheduling matter? Yes, but what matters more is the support here. And I think that's probably something we pay attention to. And if we make a big deal, the truth is, is when you recruit, you're going against some of these schools. And if we make a big deal about we're playing so and so well, they may think so and so is a little higher echelon program than what we strive to be. So all of that to say it plays a part and play and recruits and your players, they. They pay attention to it. But you just don't know day to day sometimes how the schedule will play out.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: You're entering your fourth season. How have responses to your scheduling queries changed?
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think it comes with the knowledge of your team. You know, again, my first year is. Is here. Here's one of the things that I've learned. The most important thing from a coaching perspective is you better know your guys. Okay? And I didn't do a good job of that my first year. I thought certain guys could do certain things and it takes you, man, you know, what, eight 12 games. And it's like we're not utilizing him the right way. And you kind of think through that, through that whole process. So what's important to me is that I know our players games. So I spend a good deal of time. Like I know people think that coaches, maybe they do, maybe they don't have off times.
We really don't. And it's not that we, you know, you need to feel sorry for us as if we can't go on vacation or anything, but we spend a lot of time anytime that quote unquote is considered a dead period from a recruiting Standpoint, we spend a great deal of time getting to know our players games and that's jumping into hundreds for some players, thousands of clips offensively and defensively and, and doing those type of things. And how are they wired and you get profiles of who they are psychologically. And you know what, do not yell at so and so because if you yell at so and so, I'm just telling you like that guy, that guy kind of goes into a cave and you can do all of those things. Again, you can be demanding without being demeaning. But there's so much of this that I need to know our players games and I think as we know our players games, going back to the scheduling piece you figure out these are opportunities in us for in order to grow their game individually and then our game as a team. And so you kind of think through that strategically in order to ensure that happens. But the priority is the players and then from your players that determines the schedule.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: As you're building a non con, do you start that process with we want X number of buy games, we want X number of road games, we want X number of games against the top hundred in the net. Do you have kind of a framework going in or does it just kind of fall into place?
[00:11:54] Speaker B: No, somebody shared with me that somebody had talked about, hey, you want some ratio? I can't remember the ratio of, you know, this games versus home games and competitive games news to me. I never actually, I, in fact when it, when it was brought up, I was like, you know what, it's not a bad way to think, but it's not anything that we do what I think. And if you go back and look at it each of the last four years, we have four Q1, Q2 games within there. So what you'll see is, you know, 20, 23, 24, we had four. And that's carried on.
You have to project. You know, some of this is predictive measurements. And there are places out there that put teams together. We utilize a system that we pay quite a bit of money for in order to not only to project where a team is, but if we added so and so, how would that comparatively rank us in the league? I remember my first year and again this is not an attack on that team, but I remember I went through, we had the roster and said you have a 2% chance of winning your conference. And I was like 2%? That's nuts.
These metrics are BS and I'm out where we pay for this. And, and then when we were sitting in like 13th place. I was like, mother, I cannot believe how accurate that stupid predictive thing was. So all that to say we kind of have a gauge for other teams and we have a gauge for us based upon the players.
It says at the bottom of one of these. Predictive, it says does not factor in coaching. And that's always comes across as such an insult to me. Like, like, oh crap. Like, you know what? We better be good guys because this is not factoring in coaching. So the, the, the primary thing is we need four Q1, Q2 games and that, that's kind of, that's where we stand and we feel a good number in order to give us a gauge about where we're at and you know, we need to win them. If you listen in anybody on the NCAA committee and I talk to, I talk to people throughout the year from whether it be Joe Lenardi and you kind of talk through. Tell us, give it, give me your thoughts on scheduling. So and so we have access to people who are in this space and they're phenomenal at it.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: They.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: And we really do. When you talk to people on the NCAA committee and I end up doing that especially during April, May, June, you go through that process as you're formulating your schedule. What matters is who you played and where you played, those two things. The third component is obviously did you win? But you can climb net wise. And there's some people who figured out how to manipulate the net to some degree.
To the NCAA's credit. They've gotten better at it. To stop the manipulation of the metrics in order to do that. Some of this is obviously budget oriented where teams are allowed to do that. But I will tell you that spend a great deal of time talking to people on the inside in order to formulate a schedule. But our primary job is Q1, Q2 from we need to make sure that there are at least four on the schedule.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: So Boise State and New Mexico, two of the games in Cocarina and I'm sure fans will notice those prominently. How did those two series come together?
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Boise State's a second of a home and home. So we were in Idaho last year. Then they're coming there. For the record, I went to a breakfast spot the morning of that game thinking potatoes are going to be everywhere on the menu and there were no options of potatoes. This is nuts to me. You can't go to Idaho and not have an option of a potato.
[00:15:58] Speaker C: But I gotta jump in.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:00] Speaker C: Know that their conference tournament is called Starch Madness.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Starch Madness.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Yeah. It's the Big Skies Conference Tournament. And I was like, that is the coolest name I've ever seen. Arch Madness, Starch Madness.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: I hadn't seen that. But across from our hotel was a breakfast spot. And I'm like, potatoes. And they're nowhere on the menu. So all that to say they get to come to Wichita this year. So that's a second of a home and home and really, really good team. Obviously they're just, they were in the Mountain west and continue to be and just have been a juggernaut there. And then New Mexico. Eric Olin, the head coach there, he and I talked and it was like, man, how do we, you know, outside of trying to get Q1, Q2 games, how do we ensure that our programs are properly situated? When you think at large opportunities, we do need to give ourselves a chance, especially when you know that you have a lot coming back and we were able to find a date and be able to get a home and home. So both of those games are components of a home and home.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: Paul asked about the home games. I want to ask about the games away from Kocarina, particularly at Kentucky, obviously in Lexington, at usc in Lake Tahoe.
How did those games come together? Can you kind of give us a little insight on that?
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Oh, man. You want me to peel back the curtains on this, huh? I want to share. All right, so USC is, is a third party event and they're going to have it there in Lake Tahoe. And I know that their party. Dan Shell, who is running the event, reached out and. And then I called Eric Musselman. No Eric. And just said, hey, tell, what's your appetite for this? And you know, us going all the way to some degree. I honestly don't know if the game is. Because this is all news to me. I've never been to Lake Tahoe. There's a Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and there's a Lake Tahoe, California. So I think it spills over on both sides. I think we're on the Nevada side.
[00:18:08] Speaker C: You're it.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: But okay. But I didn't know if we were on the California side, but it's a close game for usc and I kind of looked at it more of a road game, but, you know, again with 11 players back, I don't know. I mean, Denning, Paul, maybe you guys know this. Is there another team that has 11 players back?
I think we're up there. I mean, it's just in this day and age to be able to have that many guys return. And we didn't graduate much.
We had two players, you know, Kenyon Giles, you know, as we seek a fifth year for him. He's back right now, so he's amongst those 11 that I'm. That I'm counting.
So all of that to say I wanted. I knew we had 10 and I wanted to challenge. I knew we wanted a challenge pretty early. So it's that, that one came about the being able to play on a neutral floor. I know Houston is playing Cal before us and then we'll turn around and play the second game. And I think it's a two day event. So I just thought it was a wonderful opportunity on the neutral floor. The Kentucky game is interesting because the date was always as we kind of went back and through this again was a third party who was putting on a neutral event. And this game was going to be played in Nashville on Black Friday the day after. And we were like, yep, you know, we're in. Kept going back and forth on not, not the opponent, not the date.
But when is this going to be an afternoon game when everybody gets done shopping and they just come from their shopping hangover to hang out with us at 11 the day after Thanksgiving. Is this going to be an evening game just because that changes your travel and so.
And then when you get an arena that's a third party. I believe we were playing where the SEC tournament is. So it made sense for Kentucky simply because in the SEC tournament it's held in Nashville. So they were going to play. Same thing's happening in Kansas City where Kansas State plays AT T Mobile.
And people want access to wherever it is they're playing. They want access to it early when it's on a neutral floor. So this one made a ton of sense to us. And I mean, 24 hours before this contract was to be signed, Kentucky said, well, what about playing in Rupp Arena? And we were like, listen, we want the game if that's what it takes the day after Thanksgiving and we want to move from Nashville. We were hoping what we wanted again was a Q1 opportunity. So on a neutral floor, you need to play a top 50 team right on their floor you need to play at top 75. So whichever way it was, it was. We felt good about it being a Q1, so didn't really matter to us. We would prefer that it be on a neutral floor. It had been, you know, just due to proximity, primarily Kentucky fans anyway. So to it didn't make much of a difference whether we play this in RUP or whether we played this in Nashville. But we honestly thought that we only had one road game. The the finishing of a home and home with at Loyola Chicago. Lola Chicago came here the previous year and we thought everything else was going to be neutral. And so that was the one shift. And if you'll notice too, you know, going back philosophically, we usually play two road games and so we usually don't extend much. I was hoping to get away with only one road game. If you're familiar at all with win percentage at home versus on the road, it's higher at home.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: You did not know you were getting this kind of intel this early on a Friday morning. But we were hoping to have a neutral but it switched at the very last minute. And again Kevin Saul, because of his, you know, longevity there, they reached out to Kevin and then Kevin said, hey, they, something wants to change and no longer is this going to end up being a third party event. This is going to be a home game. What's your appetite? And I'm like, we're in like we want to play the game. So that, that's the only little.
It was probably.
You'd be surprised at how long this stuff goes on. It should be. Do you want to play? Yes. Do y' all want to play? Yes. All right. Send a contract. Yeah, it's not that easy. This is probably about a three week process, so.
[00:22:35] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: So Ken Pomeroy's minutes continuity ranking is not out yet, but I can tell you last year wichita State ranked 342nd in the country and I would wager Denning Gehrig's hundred dollar bill, they'll probably be in the top 5%, maybe even higher. With that many people coming back, no doubt Austin Peay had a really good year last year. Southeast Missouri State had a good year last year. They're coached by Brad Korn, who Shocker fans would remember from playing at Southern Illinois.
So it's also an important part of the schedule. You want to have games against really top net teams, but you don't want to kill yourself too much. Also, is there a team on this, on the non conference schedule that could turn out to be a surprise and maybe really help you more than you're expecting?
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Well, trust me, we do not look at this the same as you just mentioned. Like I fear everybody here is Quad One. I want to say, and maybe one of you guys may know this, I want to say we are 19 and two here in non conference games. During my three years here and UMKC when we lost to them, we were, we were not Prepared like we just did not play a level of basketball that allowed us. And I know that particular game, we were 2 for 19 from 3. Not that I remember this stuff or anything, but like we just really, really struggled.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: And.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: And I. There's not a game that I am not up to either early or staying up late, usually burning candles on both ends. So I just. They're all Q ones to me and you treat them as Q ones. I can tell you that it's not any different. And then the game that we lost last year here to DePaul and you know, just being shooting 46% from the free throw line and just unable to convert some opportunities there.
So I say that to say like you think about the wins, but I'm telling you every single one of these games are important.
And, and I mean I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to go down this, this schedule. But I can tell you that Cal State Northridge is, if you look their top three in the country in transition offense. So that is unique in, in their style of play and do a phenomenal job. Coach Newman has those guys ready. They return the player of the year in that league. And so you have a player who was conference player of the year, one of the fastest teams in the country at a style that kind of causes problems.
We were eighth in the country in defensive transition.
So you know what?
I knew this going in. I knew the style of play. And it's like, man, we get a match strength versus strength here in order to put ourselves. But they have the player of the year in, in that league so returning. So there. I. I'm not looking past csun.
It is. I understand how hard that game is going to be, but it's really not a situation to where you kind of overlook anybody and you really pay attention and just trust me. Those two losses against UMKC and DePaul is. It's agony. And the wins are hard enough to get, but that is. It's agony. And I just, I. I've been on the losing end and it's not fun and you really strive, but every single team here, I'm just. And I know this is cliche, but just trust me from a staff and particularly my perspective perspective, they're just. They're all important to us.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: I'm kind of curious your thoughts on multi team events. It seems like the dynamic is changing a little bit less of an emphasis on going to Maui or Atlantis. It seems like schools have kind of eschewed that over the last few Years. From your perspective, what are the forces at play there and why is that shift kind of happened?
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Yeah, one, those things are hard to get into. Right. So Dave Odom, the great coach at Wake Forest, is, you know, in charge of Maui and I talk to Dave and you know, try to get us on the list. That stuff's already projected out, I want to say through 2030.
So I mean, just trying to even get on. There has been a shift in Maui, I will tell you that.
I heard Dan Hurley complain when they lost three games in three days at Maui and just talked about what it does to playing that quickly, that much against quality.
Unfortunately, I experienced this last year, three games, three days in Atlantis. And when I first heard Coach Hurley, I was like, what a whiner. And just complaining. And then I walked away like, oh man, you know what, there's some, you know what, there's some accuracy there. And we lost that first game against Saint Mary's and had a one point lead with a minute 18 to go, end up losing that next day. That Colorado State team, which was one of the premier assist teams in the country with how quickly they moved the ball, got our, got our heads kicked in early, came back, made it a game there in the second half and then lost the lead late, primarily due to some inefficiency against their zone against Western Kentucky after having, and it was such a learning experience, we regrouped pretty quick, came back, played a non D1 here and then we went to Northern Iowa and we were able to get a win there. And so we regrouped pretty quickly. But I will tell you kind of again, you have to have a good idea about your team. And I would just tell you if going back to your point, about 342 in minutes and if you're getting thrown that level of competition and your guys haven't been around each other for a while, I can't tell you how much time I've spent with NBA coaches this summer just because one, I'm amazed that y' all can get all your stuff in in seven days and y' all are ready to play a game. And if you've ever gone to NBA practices, that seven days that they practice in order to get ready for their first exhibition, they may practice hard one day. Like it's a lot of walkthroughs and film and depending upon the team and just where the coach is, the, the experience one. But how do we teach quicker in this day and age? Like how do we do a better job? And so I've Stolen quite a bit from NBA coaches on how to. How do we do a better job teaching quicker. And back in the old days, I was kind of. Still to some degree, you know, I admit this, that I'm used to having a group back. And this stuff you did takes, takes time. And this is the steps that you do in order to get to where you're trying to go. And so that three games in three days is a jolt if it doesn't go your way. If it does go your way, it can kind of spur some momentum. But I. Again, I think it. You have to gauge your team going back philosophically to what makes sense for us for Q1, Q2 games. So however that happens, if it's an MTE, if it's neutral floor, all of that stuff, that. That's the kind of stuff that matters. And anybody, if you're aware of the net and people who follow this stuff, they'll start talking about, you have to have wob games, which means wins above the bubble. All right, how do you know who's going to be above the bubble?
And they're just going to jump in and come on your schedule. And if you start talking through net, a home game, you have to play a top 30 team in the net to make it a Q1. So your primary opportunities are going to be on neutral road and NTE's. It's just, it has to make sense. However we can get to that four Q1, Q2 games. That's. That's the objective goal.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: Is there an arena you would love to coach in that you will keep your eye open for maybe an opportunity to go someplace.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Pulse you. You were kind enough to send these questions ahead of time, and I appreciate that. I've. I've acknowledged my affinity for Hoosiers. I just like, I just love the movie Hoosiers. I will tell you, Hoop Dreams is number one on my list. If you've ever seen the documentary Hoop Dreams, it's phenomenal. And that's number one just in total. Movies. Hoosiers is too. So Hinkle Field House holds a special place in my heart. I. So one of the reasons I just wanted to be on the right side of winning in Tulsa last year, but I really wanted to, like, how do we get to Indianapolis so I can pull out a tape measure and put ollie on somebody's shoulders and say, measure this. You'll find the same measurements. Back at our gym in Hickory, nobody would have understood it except for Denning and Paul had y' all been there. But that Dream was already formulated in my head, so I can't tell you what a disappointment it was. We've reached out to Butler, obviously, a really good team, to see if there's a home and home opportunity, but it's, it's. I, I just consider Hinkle Field House historic.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: That's a great one. Yeah. Okay. Denning will be on the road with you as voice of the Shockers. Denning, do you have an arena you would like to. Like to broadcast a game from?
[00:32:18] Speaker C: I hadn't even thought about Hinkle. That's such a great answer. I mean, Will Berg or Connor Vandover wouldn't even need anybody on their shoulders. Yeah, we could just straight up reach the tape, measure up.
I'll say Cameron Endor, just the history and so many great games there. It's smaller than people think, very intimate and intense.
Getting to call a game there would be top of the bucket list, I would say. But Hinkle's a great answer.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: That would be another, another good one. I would love to see a game in the Palestra in Philadelphia. That's kind of my.
That would be a real favorite for me.
Shocker Madness. Go ahead.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: Yeah. What's fun about places like that is the court's great, right? Because you've seen the basketball game. It's walking the concourse and realizing the history of the event. You know that for me, just as a basketball junkie and I just love sports just in general, I'm not going to jump on a soapbox here, but I mean, baseball and I just enjoy.
One of my goals is to one day get to Cooperstown and, you know, and to look at that, but I can't tell you. And I'll go to Kansas City and I don't know how many people who are listening to this has ever been, but I cannot recommend it enough.
But going to the Negro League Baseball Museum, it's incredible experience. Just. I mean, my affection as I walk out of there and I've been there to trying twice. My affection and just love for the guys who were so committed to the game and expanding the game and the opportunities that they weren't afforded at the Major League Baseball. I can't tell you how much I admire Jackie Robinson and for all that he did all that to say going to these places, we're going to have to show up two, three hours earlier before the shoot around, because I just want to walk the concourse and I just, I love the history and to be honest with you, when, when I was a head coach at Oral Roberts we came here night. I would watch this concourse and like, man, and I do that pretty much in every arena just because I really have a great deal of admiration for the cities and the history and the people who've invested in a program in order to elevate it. And so it's such a privilege for us as coaches to to be in a situation where we get to empower young men to push through the status quo and elevate their lives. And I enjoy watching all the things that come before it in visiting arenas. So to visit ones that are historic, the walking the concourse ranks pretty high up there for me.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: That's a good way to experience an arena. Shocker Madness is October 3rd. Wichita State opens the regular season November 4th versus Cal State Northridge. Shockers will also play a charity scrimmage with the details announced soon. We know the American Conference opponents. We expect dates, times and TV before the season starts later this month. Probably, as we said, 19 home games. Ticket prices are the same as last season. Season tickets are on sale now.
And as a bonus, and this is something I think no other school in the country can offer, you can buy your tickets from professional bowling star Brandon Bonta.
Yeah, Brandon Bold at Wichita State. Tell your coaching friends, Paul I don't think anybody can match this Brandon. Great bowler here at Wichita State. Last spring he won the PBA Players Championship in his first PBA event. He bowled a 300 game in the title match, and around the office they call him Mr. 300.
So Brandon works afternoons in the ticket office. He would be thrilled to talk bowling, hand out bowling tips and show you seat options. Paul Mills, Denon Gehrig, thank you for your time.
[00:36:13] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Thanks, Paul.
[00:36:29] 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] Cortez fires a 3.
We'll take a look at that in a second. I don't want to look at that one. I want to look at this one.
Cortez, he gets the switch.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: He sees it. It doesn't.
