Shockwaves

You can read The Wichita Eagle’s basketball style section here.

• Wichita State men’s breakdown and schedule.
• WSU women’s breakdown and schedule.
• MVC predictions (I’m buying into SIU for better or worse). Is anybody with me?
• MVC schedule

Previews from other places

• Blogging the Bracket picks Illinois State second.
• Rush The Court picks Creighton as the favorite.
• Rivals.com says SIU is on the decline.
• No prediction from USA Today. Instead, it’s a look at each team.
• CBSSports.com sticks with Northern Iowa as the favorite.

After last fall’s scrimmage against Kansas State, Wichita State basketball coach Gregg Marshall said his team needed to play with more urgency. He liked the experience, but his team didn’t play well.

The Shockers are a year older, and Marshall is much more upbeat after Sunday’s rematch with the Wildcats at Koch Arena. The teams practiced for around four hours, doing both situational, controlled work and scrimmages. The scrimmages were closed by NCAA rule and coaches are not allowed to reveal scores or statistics.

“It’s a much better starting point,” Marshall said. “We’ve gotten better as a basketball team from a year ago.”

Anybody who watches Kansas State knows the Wildcats play a physical, aggressive style of basketball. Marshall said he thought his team handled K-State’s muscle.

“We were able to compete with big, strong, aggressive athletes and not back down,” he said. “We were able to go against a team that is well-coached and do our thing.”

In a recurring theme, WSU junior Graham Hatch stood out in Marshall’s mind. Hatch has always hustled. More encouraging is his good shooting day.

“He’s right in the middle of the fray,” Marshall said. “He will mix it up.”

WSU will not practice on Monday, although the players will look at some film from the scrimmage. David Kyles, out with a sprained left ankle, did not scrimmage. Preparation begins Tuesday for Saturday’s exhibition game against Newman. WSU opens the season on Nov. 15 against Farleigh Dickinson.

• Bradley scrimmaged DePaul.

Wichita State scrimmaged on Friday afternoon, playing four periods of officiated basketball. Predictably, coach Gregg Marshall saw a little of everything. Graham Hatch and Clevin Hannah played very well. The freshmen made freshmen mistakes. Marshall preferred a little more defense from almost everybody.

“We had some guys that didn’t play particularly well, and we have some guys who have no clue what we’re doing,” Marshall said. “But that’s why you do it.”

Hatch made shots, rebounded and hustled.He was the player who stood out, both for his effort and effectiveness.  Hannah, Marshall pointed out, enjoys playing against rookie guards. He makes it difficult on Kenny Manigault and Demetric Williams. They sometimes struggled to bring the ball up court. Hannah seemed to get a shot – from deep or in the lane – whenever he wanted. Walk-on Derek Brown contributed a lot for a guy who joined the team two weeks ago. He is a good shooter and looked like he picked up the system quickly.

“I thought Graham Hatch was tremendous, Marshall said. “I thought Clevin Hannah was very good. I thought J.T. Durley was very good offensively. But he would have never scored like he did throughout the course of the scrimmage in a real game because he would have been on the bench with three fouls because of his defense. We’ve got a number of guys like right now. (Toure) Murry is a little like that. Murry’s more worried about the offensive end than he is the defensive end.”

• My choices for starting lineup if the season started today: Hatch, Hannah, Murry, Durley and Aaron Ellis. Ellis is playing well. Marshall called him WSU’s best screener and post defender. Gabe Blair, who will push Ellis for playing time, is still learning the system and he’s a little banged up. He’s not quite as bouncy as he was last season.
• David Kyles didn’t practice due to a sprained left ankle. Marshall isn’t sure if he will play in Sunday’s scrimmage against Kansas State.
• A few highlights: Garrett Stutz took a pass at the free-throw line and looked defended for an instant. Then he turned into the lane, dribbled and swished a pretty running shot. Manigault hit one of the big men (can’t remember who) with a precise no-look pass for a layup. Manigault was bottled up on offense most of the scrimmage, until he used his speed to get into the lane for a layup. Hatch made several threes. Durley scored against Stutz with that up-and-under move he uses so well.

That name should bring back nightmares for a generation of Shocker basketball fans. Pressey tormented some of WSU’s greatest teams when he played for Tulsa from 1980-82. He went 4-0 against WSU in his two seasons. Whenever Tulsa needed a steal or a basket in those game, Pressey seemed to deliver. As a Shocker fan, you hated him for beating your team. You also admired the way he played. Pressey, who played 11 seasons in the NBA, returned to Wichita last week as an assistant for the New Orleans Hornets. The first memory on his list was the 1981 game when Tulsa beat No. 14 WSU in double overtime after trailing by five points with under 30 seconds to play in regulation.

Q: What do you remember about playing in this arena?

A: I was telling some of the other assistant coaches that some of my greatest college basketball games were here. Us being down, I believe it was five points with 25 seconds to go. It was an exciting moment, being on the road and winning like that against a good team. Xavier McDaniel, I think he was a freshman my senior year. Levingston and Antoine  – those guys were monsters. They were stacked. It was a good basketball game to watch because both teams played very fast and were very aggressive in the paint. That made it exciting basketball.

Q: Describe playing at Tulsa for coach Nolan Richardson.

A: He was a father figure for me, leaving home from (Richmond) Virginia and going to Western Texas (for junior college) playing two years there for him and then going to the University of Tulsa. When you get far away from home, you need a father figure and he was it. On and off the court, he set the tone – not just for me but for all his players. I always believed he did that at whatever university he coached for. He was going to teach his players to be young men. Basketball was going to take care of itself.

Q: What is it like coaching Hornets star Chris Paul?

A: He allows you not to have to coach very much. He’s just a talent. He’s an extension of the head coach. He’s our leader. He makes the game easy for a lot of players out there on the floor and therefore he allows our team to have some kind of success. It depends on how the rest of our players step up their level of play as to how far we go this year. I like our chances. We injected some young players, including Julian Wright from Kansas. We put (Wright) in the starting lineup because we wanted to put him with our best players and give him a chance that those mistakes he makes, our veteran players can help him get over those.

Q: Phil Pressey, one of the nation’s top high school point guards, is headed to Missouri to play for former Tulsa teammate Mike Anderson. How did your son end up with the Tigers?

A: Coach Anderson is not just a mentor from a coaching standpoint, he’s seen my son grow up. They already had a relationship. It’s a perfect fit. He plays his style of basketball. My whole thing was I wanted to make sure he goes somewhere where the coach teaches him about growing to be a young man. I didn’t care about basketball. He’s a very good basketball player and that’s going to take care of itself.

Q: Is Phil a defensive stopper like his father?

A: He’s a pretty good defensive player, but he’s a Chris Paul. He has that mind-set and is that kind of caliber player. He’s a game-changer. That’s why Coach Anderson was so in love with him. He’s an exciting player, he’s an ooh-and-aah player. Every team would love to have one of those.