[00:00:13] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Solentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. It's July, so that means it's time to talk about the Aftershocks. Our guest is Zach Bush. Zach is in his sixth year as coach of the Aftershocks. They open play in the basketball tournament 7pm July 20. That's Monday versus the enchantment. Those are New Mexico alums.
That game is on FS1. It is the best of three series. All of those games will be at Kocarina. Games scheduled for July 23rd and then the if necessary game is July 24th. Both of those will be at 8pm Prize money's up to $2 million. Zach Bush is from Goddard Eisenhower High School. He played at wichita State from 2012-17.
He's coming off his first as boys basketball coach at Mays High School.
So, Zach, let's start. Update us on your career. How did the first year go at MA High?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: It went really well. I really enjoyed it. We had a tremendous group of young high school student athletes.
It was both very challenging, very rewarding at the same time. You know, kind of expected that. First time stepping in to run my own program, was very fortunate to walk into a program that had had a lot of success under another former Witch State alum and Chris Grill. He had done such a good job there for so long. So I think it's just a huge luxury when there's been standards, even if they're, you know, things are a little bit different than maybe how you're going to do them.
There had been a high level of expectation and standards. So it wasn't like going into a program that had to be totally revamped and re establish things. It was just now kind of putting my stamp on things and how I wanted to do things.
Had a great staff, great kids. We were able to go 20 and 6, finish second in a really good ABCLTRY Division 2 with May south and Derby right there with us and got to the state tournament, which was always a huge success when you're playing in 6A. And then unfortunately lost a really close one. Heartbreaker to heights by one. But all in all, tremendous year. Had a, you know, all first team all league player in Braden Mavella, who was our leader and just unbelievable player and athlete. So just had a lot of fun overall. Grew a lot, I think as a person and had a lot of fun pouring into our kids and trying to build our relationship and kind of set the foundation for going forward.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: What was the biggest lesson you got out of Your first year as head
[00:02:47] Speaker B: coach, one of the biggest ones is, as cliche as it sounds, after reflecting on it, was I think to not lose sight of, you know, the fun and why we do this. I think anybody who gets into coaching wants to impact young people.
And I think we can get so lost at times in the win loss record and the successes and the failures that at times you forget that all of us first started in, you know, that are around basketball because we loved it and because it was fun. I think going forward, I'd like to remember that throughout a season to both personally remember to have fun and to remember, you know, as much as it is my job to hold our kids accountable and to have standards and discipline and to grow as a program, I want them to enjoy it and have fun.
So going forward, I think that was kind of the biggest lesson is just don't lose sight of why we do this, the love for it and don't forget to have fun.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: So the High School Activities association added the option you could schedule three more games boys basketball last season. So you're up to have the possibility of scheduling 23. We're kind of phasing in the 35 second shot clock 4, 5 and 6A used it in the post season 2026. The smaller classes are going to adopt it over the next seasons. Do you like these moves? Is high school basketball moving in a good direction in our fine state?
[00:04:08] Speaker B: I believe it is. I think shot clock is a huge asset for our game. After being around it when I had moved up and was in Omaha for two years and just seeing how honestly how far ahead Nebraska high school athletics were as a whole. And a lot of that was due to the Nebraska State association and their rules as far as how much you can work with players, when you can't work with players, what you can do, you should have a lot more access to the kids and then even rules like they had shot clock and it had it for a few years and truly think it helps the game.
You know, I won't get into the weeds on all the decisions of why I think shot clock is better for basketball, but I think, you know, just from a basic level, it forces you to teach offense. Like you as a coach have to teach guys how to play, how to look for advantages instead of, you know, essentially I don't want to disrespect anybody, but at times, you know, teams we've seen, it's more rare, but you've seen teams just hold ball. And I just, I think that's against the spirit of the game and I think it also requires you to, to be able to defend at a high level. There's going to typically be more possessions in a game and then as you get later into a game you're also going to see more late clock situations. And I think that requires you as a coach to have things ready for your group and to truly teach the game of basketball. So we loved it. We maybe had two shot clock violations all year and it was just accidental, our kids, you know, forgetting that. Oh yeah, we do have a, a 35 second shot clock and getting late clock. So I think it's fun for them. It's fun to work on in practice those situations but we loved it.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: What would coaches like to see next? What's another change or advancement that coaches would, would back?
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Yeah, there's been some talk around removing the closely guarded 5 second count. Kind of mixed reviews. I'm fine either way.
When I was in Omaha we'd go across the border and play some Iowa teams and they didn't have the closely guarded 5 second.
So we'd be on the bench like yelling what you know at a referee. Why are you not counting? And they'd say you're in Iowa like you're playing rules and they don't have it. So you know, I go back and forth. I, I truly don't mind if they, if they remove it.
I also understand the, the logic of keeping it. That one's a big hot topic. I think a lot of talk too around the new change to the state tournament and kind of tweaked the format this year they had games up in Kansas City for the first round and was basically kind of a home court thing. If you were at Kansas City school in a higher seed, you essentially got to host up there pros and cons with that. I would like eventually for us to go to Nebraska's model where the entire state tourname is at one site and location.
It's very doable. Obviously there's a million reasons why something can't work and I know logistically it can be challenging but I just saw the benefit of having everybody in one site and the atmosphere that created. And again we do this for the student athletes. Why would you not want these gyms as full as you could get them? Like the environment and experience that that provided our kids in Nebraska just second to none. So I would love to see us eventually get to all classes, every game at one site.
We'll see if that happens. It's obviously tough to do. We're a little bit more spread out, you know, population density wise than Nebraska is. You know, majority of their population is in Omaha and in Lincoln, whereas we're a little bit more spread out with Kansas City, Wichita, you know, and some of our western Kansas bigger communities. So not sure that it'll ever happen, but it seems like they're trying to make, you know, decisions that benefit the student athletes and we're going in the right direction.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: All right, let's let you reminisce about 20, 25 aftershocks to remind people. Aftershocks defeated Eberlein Drive 8267 in front of 9,029 fans at Koch Arena. Marcus Keane scored 22 points. The Aftershocks won six games last summer, four of those by 12 or more points. So really a dominating run to the title. What's the memory that sticks with you the most from last summer?
[00:08:05] Speaker B: What a joy that group was to coach and be around. They. It just felt like for the first time ever, we had truly every piece in place and the way that group gelled. You know, chemistry is a big thing if. If your group doesn't enjoy playing together. And there's. Even when it's quiet, like a quiet tension that's kind of, you know, kept under the table. You can. You can feel it as a coach. And there's been past years where, you know, guys were respectful and they were professional, but you could feel frustrations from them, and it would show at times on the floor. And then when they subbed out last year, we just had an incredibly unselfish group. They played so well together. It was. Every game was truly about doing, you know, the right thing for your teammate, whether that means you've got to come off the floor or just, you know, I rewatched a couple of the games this last week, and there was just a play in the Heartfire game, which was a big game for us. They had the year before or two years before, come in and beat us by 20 and kind of embarrassed us, frankly. And we had a play where Nike Sabane, who was unbelievable for us, and that guy could have taken any shot he wanted, got downhill into the paint and decided to skip it to the corner to James Woodard. James Woodard. I mean, just immediate. There was no hesitation. One more pass to Leighton Hammond's. Leighton buries a three. It's like that type of basketball made us so successful. Incredibly unselfish, bought in defensively and they fed off the crowd. So just what a joy they were to coach. What a joy they were to Be around and you know to watch play basketball.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: Fun group to watch. Definitely played some very good basketball, especially for a team kind of put together on the fly. So Marcus McDuffie, Connor Francamp, Rashard Kelly and Trey Wade, former Shockers become very familiar and aftershocks uniforms. They will be back.
Run through the rest of the roster for us. What do fans need to know about who else will we be playing?
[00:09:54] Speaker B: Yes, we returned quite a bit from last year as far as the non alumni go. Marcus Keane is back. Marcus Santos Silva, James Woodard is back. And then we added QJ Peterson who is a huge scoring punch. Fans might remember him when we played the Guttercat gang team here maybe around 2023, we played him in a regional final.
It came down here to us and it was a great game. Came down to the end and in that game QJ was the leading scorer. He's very similar to Marcus Keane in that he's a smaller guard but he's a professional scorer. It's what he's paid to do playing over in China which pays a lot of money for some of these guys to go score the basketball. He's been above a 20 point per game scorer now for majority of his career. So really excited to add qj. Great person I think adds a scoring punch and then we're fortunate to add Chauncey Jenkins, Corey Washington and Morris Udesi. We think, you know, Morris is somebody we've wanted to play with us for a while now and think he'd just be a great fit. He was part of really good teams here. Chauncey Jenkins was one of those guys that never truly, I think got to show who he was. Here he was stuck behind some really good guards like Tyson Etienne and you know, Craig Porter, guys who were on a championship team.
And then when he left here his game really blossomed. Just more opportunity for him. He went to Old Dominion and then finished at Seton hall and he actually just finished his rookie year where he had a great start. He was in Portugal averaging about 20 a game. Played so well that he was then moved over to Israel and played in first league Israel and had solid year, about 10 points per game on a team that made the playoffs. So excited for him to get back in front of the fans because I'm sure he wants to show what he thinks. You know, he truly is about a 6364 athletic guard similar to Nike Sabande last year and then Corey Washington just finishing up his college career at smu. He gives us great length and athleticism on the perimeter shot 40% from three last year and started 34 games at SMU. So nose winning basketball and I think he's a guy that fans love. His playstyle in the year that he was here resonated with fans. It was that junkyard dog mentality. Crashes the glass hard, rebounds bigger than he is, defends, plays with energy. So I'm really excited about another versatile group that we have.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: And to remind people, Morris, who does a. He was here at Wichita State for four seasons and then had a fifth, finished up at New Mexico. So he will be playing. He has connections to both of the teams in this first round matchup. Corey Washington was at Wichita State for one season, played really well and then transferred to smu. And as you mentioned, Chauncey Jenkins spent two seasons at Wichita State.
Marcus Keane, tournament MVP last summer. Really played really exciting to watch. I think he set the table in a lot of ways for Kenyon Giles.
How do you get the most out of a player like Marcus Keane?
And what did you learn? You now get to coach him for a second season.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I think a guy like that, you have to let him be him.
You have to, you know, not try to, you know, tame a wild horse too much. Not that Marcus is wild, but you know, he's a guy that needs room to, to build confidence within a game. And you know, his first couple games last year with us in cbc, he didn't play super well. But we, we knew what he was and what he was capable of so we knew to never panic. And I think that trust, you know, was felt by him that we just, we never really said anything, didn't have to say, hey, you're, you know, you went two for nine. Maybe you need to tone it back. Like he's not that kind of guy. He needs to know you have ultimate confidence because he has ultimate confidence in himself. He's one of those guys that can absolutely change a game with his shooting ability and you saw that Eberlein drive, we could set a really high ball screen for him. And if you're not going to come out and guard it, he's going to make you pay. And now once you do have to step out as a big man, he's downhill and he's quick enough and smart enough where he makes the right play. He's not just a scorer. He had some awesome passes last year where he set the table for guys. He really makes us go. I think our trust just improved a lot last year. And you know, he's a leader for this group. He's not afraid to be vocal and that's what we've always needed and I think we're missing for quite a while. So having him is just a luxury.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: First game is Monday. Take us through the timeline. When do the aftersharks aftershocks start arriving and start practicing?
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yep, the guys will all fly in or drive in tomorrow depending on where they're at.
Get in. You know, it's always fingers crossed that everybody makes their flight and there's no travel delays or major issues. But barring any of that, all the guys arrive tomorrow and then we'll start practicing. So we got Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you got four days essentially to get ready.
Benefit we have is we've been together guys, you know, we're bringing back the bulk majority of a team that won it last year and that I think understands what it takes to win this. So that helps with the timeline being that you're not able to have, you know, a two week camp or something.
You know, we'll wind up having a few practices together to figure out, you know, what we want to do, how we want to guard things and then offensively kind of reestablish our flow. But I think it's a huge benefit to us having a group that got to play six games together last year.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: And we're recording this on Wednesday, July 15th. So when Zach refers to tomorrow, Thursday, July 16th will be the first first pract practices as all the aftershocks start arriving in Wichita.
New TBT format. 16 teams, 8 from alumni, school based, 8 non alumni teams. They will all play in Las Vegas. What do you think of this new format?
[00:15:43] Speaker B: I mean, I wouldn't say I love was a lot of fun when the tournament, you know, was big and we were hosting eight different teams here. I just, I'm a basketball junkie. So to be able to walk into the arena and there's a game going on before you and you get to kind of critique and watch and learn from other teams, that was just a lot of fun for me. I think for fans too. They really enjoyed, you know, having KU and K State here, getting to watch them.
But you know, at the end of the day we want to play basketball and we want to play in this tournament. So we'll take any opportunity that we can get. And on the flip side, I think the change is going to be really fun for fans. You're going to get to see us play against a really good New Mexico team where it's not a do or die in the first round, where it's a best of three and then after that, you know, assuming that we're able to move on, going to finally be able to get either the KU or K State matchup that we've been, you know, really wanting against each other for for years now in this tournament. So I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I know fans are probably disappointed that the tournament is smaller, but we're excited and obviously the prize money's gone up to $2 million, so there's a whole lot at stake. We're going to have a target on our back, but we're fired up to get it going and the guys are really focused. I don't think the the change in format has affected the guys at all. If anything, coming back and wanting to defend the title has made them hungrier.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: The aftershocks they open TBT play Monday 7pm versus the enchantment. That's on FS1. It's the best of three series, so they will play again on Thursday at Koch arena and then if necessary, on Friday. The winner of that series advances. They will play either JHX Jayhawks Hoop Hoops, that's the KU alumni, or Purple Rain, the Kansas State group.
That will be a single elimination game also in Wichita on July 27. Quarterfinals, semifinals and championship are all single elimination games. Zach Bush, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: 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] Malcolm out near the timeline, Left side of the floor to Baker. Ron works deeper to the wing, fires a three. Good Ron Baker with his third three point field goal of the game and Wichita State goes ahead by four.
