[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Happy holidays. Thank you very much for listening. We're going to preview American conference basketball today. P.J. cusnard is in his first season as an assistant coach for the Wichita State men's basketball team. He played for The Shockers from 2004 to 2008 and he joined coach Paul Mills staff in May. The shockers are 8 and 5. They ended 2025 with one of their best all around performances in an 8857 win over Eastern Kentucky. WSU opens American Conference play on Wednesday. That's at UAB. They continue on the road at Charlotte on January 3rd.
First home conference game is January 7th versus Rice. PJ let's start with the holiday routine. Most of the guys will go home. When did they return to Wichita? And how do you structure your practices to get everybody back in the flow of basketball?
[00:01:10] Speaker A: The break is good for everybody because they get to go home and see their family, but they also miss their basketball family. So they be excited to come back. And they all came back. Most of them came back Christmas night, early the day after Christmas. And you know, you just structure your practice to, you know, they want to be around each other when they get back. So it was easy for them to get back and then they see the chemistry is still there. So, you know, we practiced, we went I think twice on the next day or something like that. But, you know, it was easy getting these guys back in the gym. Plus we got a bunch of guys that love being in the gym.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Yeah, Paul Mills has talked about that a lot. He says, I think his phrase has been he doesn't do well with people who don't love basketball. What is it about this group? Why do they love the sport of basketball so much?
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Man, maybe because it's been so good to them, you know, in today's era and climate. But I think, man, these guys just have a natural love of just being gym rats. Like they all in on their own personal, individual times, getting training, then they practice and they constantly, you know, trying to better themselves and improve their game. And I think that that rubs off throughout the whole team. So you almost oddball out if you're not, you know, in a gym or a gym rat. And that's good for teams to have, especially college basketball teams.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: I got here about 9 o' clock this morning. Dre Kendall was one of those guys out there and you started practice at 11, I think. So he was here two hours early, getting up some jump shots he seems to be one that people mention regularly about loving the game and putting in a lot of extra work. Okay, 13 games. The Shockers did a lot. They played true road games, went to a tournament, played good competition.
What did you learn about this team from the first 13 games?
[00:02:50] Speaker A: Man, the first 13 games, I learned that, you know, through whatever. They stick together through all the tough games, everything. Every game we played, I never seen us, you know, go into individual mindset. Anybody going to individual mindset and say, hey, we losing, but I'm gonna do this.
I think these guys are resilient, you know, and they're learning how to be tough and be passionate at the same time, and I think that's gonna put us over the edge in a lot of games coming up. Just being battle tested. Like, we had some good battles.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Okay, like, the mental side of it. Most encouraging development. What did you like most other than what you just talked about with this team?
[00:03:30] Speaker A: What I like most is our ability to adapt to the game that's being played. Like, sometimes teams want to get up and down, and sometimes teams have certain schemes and stuff like that, styles that, you know, we have to match. And Coach Mills does a great job of game planning and making changes and stuff like that. And for kids to do that on the fly is pretty tough. And for our guys to do it, you know, and kind of go about the game plan is one of the things that's very, very neat to see areas of improvement.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: What are the biggest things you'll be talking to the team about before you get started?
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Just pushing the ball more, getting more stops and pushing the ball, getting. Playing in transition is great for us. So I think we just put the emphasis on keep on doing it and stuff like that. And, you know, and then, of course, you know, in conference games, all conference games are war. So you just got to be tough and be ready to go out there and fight the whole entire game.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Definitely. No question. The Shockers, according to Ken Pomeroy's statistics, they're number 32 nationally in limiting turnovers, limiting their own Turnovers, and number 14 nationally in offensive rebounding percentage. Those are both two areas that Paul Mills talks about a lot.
Are those two of the strengths that this team is really going to lean into over the next two months?
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Without a doubt. I think we have to use our size and our ability to go fetch the ball to win games. You know, rebounding and taking care of the ball is the biggest things, especially when you're playing on the road and at home. But just. Just a Big emphasis on taking care of the ball and rebounding. I think that's one of our advantages.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: I think Wichita State fans would say the play of T.J. williams, forward from Wichita Heights might be the most pleasant aspect of the season to date. They really enjoy watching him play. Why has TJ Been able to contribute in so many ways as a red shirt freshman?
[00:05:28] Speaker A: For one, because he's been in coach system last year learning the ins and outs. That's why that red shirt is so important.
So he's very comfortable with everything that coach is saying, all the terminology and everything like that. And also, TJ Is a heck of a basketball player. Like, he could do everything on the court, so it's kind of hard to game plan for him because if you put somebody big on him, he could post them. I mean, he'd go by him. He put somebody smile on him, he could post them. So it's always a pleasure to have that type of threat on the court and stuff like that. So he's done a good job finding his role, and he don't force anything, and that's probably the biggest attribute of him. He just let it all come to him.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: TJ Had a knee injury last year, so he sat out, practiced a lot of the year.
So as you said, that has probably helped his development. Definitely. Okay. The win over Western Kentucky, the big highlight, Caron Boyd, he had Grinch shoes that everybody loved, and then he shot the ball really well. 4 of 8 from 3, scored 22 points, made 9 of 13 shots overall.
What is Caron's kind of ideal role in this offense? And this was that game a sign that he's really figuring out where he can be most effective.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: I think, man, he's been consistent all season. He's just happy to make a lot more threes in one game. But that's been him, man. He's been our steady hand.
And if you go back and look at the games, we kind of struggled and lost. He's been the one that kind of keep us in the games until everybody gets the board.
Just because he's just tough enough to make shots, man. He tough enough to do everything he need to do on the court. So that's half the battle sometimes.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: If you had to design custom shoes, custom Nikes, what would the design be?
[00:07:03] Speaker A: I don't know if it'd be the design he went with, but that was a pretty neat design that he did, and I think it was great. I mean, great idea, man. These kids are so great with marketing things and stuff like that. They Got great mindsets. So that was pretty neat. Like, when he came out, I was like, oh, what's those? You know, we always talk about shoes. So that was a pretty cool thing for Karan.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: A lot of the shockers have really interesting shoe games.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Oh, definitely.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: It's a lot to track out there.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a lot to track out there, definitely.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Another highlight, I think, from a fan's perspective, would be the play of Dre Kendall, a junior guard transfer from Barton Community College. Tell us about Dre. Why is he able to spark this team in so many ways?
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Man, Dre has passion waking up in the morning. Dre has passion going to get water. Dre has passion walking onto the court. I mean, he literally comes onto the court and just screams for like five seconds for no apparent reasons. So he's always had his energy and his burst of energizing the team. And he's a great teammate. So a lot of the guys, they believe in what he doing and stuff like that. So Dre is definitely Wichita State mantra of, like, what people want our guys to be like. He's a perfect example of it.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: He has been fun to watch, no doubt. Another guy who's been fun to watch has been Kenyon Giles. He's shooting 41% from three. And a real theme of this season is what defenses are doing. They're just all over him, trying to take his offense away. So he didn't take a shot in the first half against Eastern Kentucky, and that seemed to really help the offense because all the attention he gets in the Wofford game, which was previous to Eastern Kentucky, he seemed to really get to the basket early to take care of that, take advantage of those defenders overplaying him. So are we seeing him understand more how to combat those defenses, and is that helping this team's offense?
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Oh, without a doubt, man. Anybody that gets that much attention on offense definitely opens up the floor for everybody else. But for him to try to figure it out every night, where literally people are grabbing and holding him and hugging him all night, and still him being able to be efficient and find ways to help us win as a team, man, it just says a lot about Kenya. He's a great guy.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point, I think. I haven't talked to him about it, but it's been on my mind.
He does not appear to get super frustrated with all the defensive attention. And you mentioned a lot of that is going to be physical. The pushing and the holding. Is that a sign of maturity? I mean, he's an older guy.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: He's been a doubt. Yeah, without a doubt. He's like mature way beyond his years. Like we have conversations all the time and he, you know, he's constantly trying to figure out how figure out the defense and how they guard them every night. And you know, just seeing so many different defenses. Like he's seen a lot in our first in our non conference game. So him just figuring out each one and trying to figure out how he can affect winning rather than him trying to score all the time. He's like, man, whatever I could do to help us win, that's more important than whatever I can do to give me a shot.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: The center combination of Will Berg and Emmanuel Okorafor playing really well and I should mention freshman Noah Hill who's made some contributions.
Will and Emmanuel tell us how they complement each other and how the coaching staff strategizes playing them. What matchups are best, what time is best to get those guys in the game.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Yeah, they both, they're very different and that's a good thing to have because they give you two different dynamics.
When Eman's in, we like to, you know, we kind of play a little bit faster. But when Will's in, he's our calm kind of leader out there, general, and we go through him a lot. So I mean they've been great to be having both of them, the luxury to have both of them but you know, it's hard for other teams to defend us because they don't know what style of play we're going to use because Will can actually play faster and you also actually throw it down to Eman and play through Eman. So they are different in their initial approach, but they both can do the kind of same thing.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: So Jarrett, Valencia, Brian Amanique, they seem like really important players. As we start thinking about the American Conference, they both have shown signs of contributing more in some recent games. They would be really helpful to add some more depth coming off the bench for the Shockers.
Let's start with Jarrett. What's the mission for him to help out more over these next two months?
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Man, just be active, be himself. I think he was just trying to fit in and trying to find his way. And then the last couple games he just went out and bit was himself, you know, and that, that's all we ask you guys to be, is be yourself. You know, coach recruited you here for a reason, so just could be that. And same thing with B Brian. He's been shooting the lights out the ball last couple games. And that's what he do. He do it every day at practice, just light it up. So it's not nothing new for us. We've just been expecting it. So those guys give us great depth.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Definitely they could help out if they can contribute on that. On that trajectory.
Your son Pierre, redshirting a guard on the Shocker team. What's it like coaching your son in college?
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Oh, it's fun, man. It's funny. You also find yourself looking like, if I'm on one, you know, like, what is he doing down there? I hope he don't mess up, you know, stuff like that. But it's been. Been a blast, man, just seeing him being able to interact with the guys and, you know, be accepted by his teammates as, you know, being a good basketball player as well. So, you know, it's been a blessing for me to just to be around them.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: I've talked to a lot of athletes over the years, and some of them will have parents who are really involved, some not. So it's always interesting to ask about boundaries. So you and P Already have rules or guidelines about. All right, when we sit down to dinner, no more basketball talk. Or is it basketball talk all the time?
[00:12:41] Speaker A: I don't know, man. I think I'm a pretty chill dad with him.
I mean, like, we never had, like, any issues or situations where, like, oh, man, Daddy, you tripping or you was on me too hard. You know, I just let him be, man. I just like to listen to him and see what he going through, see how he see things and stuff like that. And we just talk about, you know, random stuff. You know, we talk about everything. So it's been a blessing, man. I just.
I hope he feel the same way. I hope he don't think I'm over all overbearing. You know, parents never know. But I hope he's having a blast as much as I am.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Road trips coming regularly now. What's your favorite way to pass the time on the airplane? Do you have a podcast, some music? How do you tune out A little bit.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: I sit still the entire time.
Coach KP just got on me about showing me how to download movies and stuff on my iPad and stuff like that to make the time go fast. I think. On the way from Bahamas, I watched the Accountant, too.
So I guess movies now is my way of passing time.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Movies is a good one.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, you're a little behind if you don't know how to download a movie.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah, man. You know, I hadn't. I hadn't flown in so long. I hadn't flew it so long. So, you know, I had to get back used to getting in the air and stuff like that.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Okay. Usually your son, that's Pierre's job.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Help you with the technology?
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Oh, without a doubt. I make him help me on all technology, like he my iPad, social media, all that. He does everything for me for that.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Okay. That's an important role of the youngsters. Definitely. Who was the shocker teammate you wanted to sit next to when you took a road trip, say, in 2006? Was there somebody who was really good conversation, brought really good snacks or maybe didn't talk at all?
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Maybe that's who you wanted to talk in 2006. I pretty me and O' Giri was pretty much attached at the hip.
So, you know, we probably was just talking about something random or something. We was roommates, too, so we was probably figuring something out, you know, to do before or after the game or talking about the game plan and stuff like that. So probably Sean for sure.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Sean o', Giri, well known for his shooting ability and his Afro. Wichita State men's basketball. They open American Conference play on Wednesday at UAB. They continue on the road at Charlotte on January 3rd.
You can come out and watch the Shockers at Koch Arena January 7th versus Rice. PJ Cuzenard, thank you very much for your time.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse podcast courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications.
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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. Bijan Cortez, he gets the switch. He sees it. It doesn't.
