Behind Paul Mills’ nonconference scheduling philosophy for Wichita State basketball

It’s no coincidence the Wichita State men’s basketball team will play its first true road game for a season-opener in 32 years this November.

The Shockers will begin the 2024-25 season with a road trip to E.A. Diddle Arena to play Western Kentucky on Nov. 4, a deliberate choice by WSU head coach Paul Mills.

A 7-1 start to last season crumbled for WSU once the road games came, as a loss at Missouri on Dec. 3 kicked off a stretch where the Shockers lost 10 out of 11 games. The team didn’t win a road game until the final day of February, the only meaningful road win of the season.

“I told our staff, ‘We’re not going to wait until Game 9 like we did last year to figure out if we’re good enough to go into other people’s gyms and win,’” Mills said. “I don’t want to wait until December again to know if we have the people in the locker room or if we’re doing the right things from a coaching staff perspective in order to win road games. You’re eventually going to have to play it, so I wanted to get an answer right away.”

It’s not a decision Mills would have made if he didn’t have a veteran team he believed was capable of handling such a unique challenge.

WSU brought back five of its top seven players from last season’s rotation, then added four experienced players in the transfer portal and a 22-year-old Croatian center who was playing professionally. The Shockers figure to be one of the oldest teams in the country with 10 upperclassmen who all expect to be part of the rotation.

With that in mind, Mills believes he has built a nonconference schedule that can earn WSU an at-large bid at the end of the season.

Based on Bart Torvik’s preseason projections, WSU is projected to play at least five Quad 1 or 2 games (Kansas State at home, both ESPN games in Orlando and road games at Western Kentucky and DePaul) with a sixth (a neutral-site game against Saint Louis in Kansas City) possible. Of course, those are just projections and a lot can change between now and March, but five or six Quad 1 and 2 opportunities would give WSU the potential to build a postseason resume.

“We wanted to schedule hard enough to give ourselves a chance at the end of the year from an at-large perspective,” Mills said. “We’ll find out if we have bitten off more than we can chew, but given the experience of this team, I did want to give us every chance in the world to get an indication about who we are and more importantly prove who I think we are.”

A shift in scheduling philosophy has seen WSU vacate Intrust Bank Arena, as sources inform The Eagle that the Shockers will not play a game in the downtown arena for the first time (in a full season) since it opened in 2010, and schedule a neutral-site game in Kansas City for the second straight year.

That could be a developing trend, as WSU could potentially schedule better opponents (for potential Quad 1 games) easier in Kansas City rather than Wichita.

“That’s kind of how you have to do it right now,” Mills said. “The truth is that unless you work out home-and-home’s, nobody is just going to come to your place and play a game from a Quad 1-2 perspective. So it makes it difficult. You’re going to have to play quality teams in (multi-team events) and on neutral floors. That’s probably where a lot of this stuff is headed.”

Could that mean a return of regional power-conference opponents on the schedule? After all, it wasn’t that long ago WSU was playing teams like Baylor (2017-18), Oklahoma (2016-19), Oklahoma State (2019-22) and Kansas State (2021-24) on a regular basis.

“That’s definitely something we want to do,” Mills said. “And the regional stuff makes sense. But the problem is that these aren’t unilateral decisions. So you have to get other people on board and see where they’re at. But putting ourselves in position is definitely important. The way you get Quad 1, Quad 2 games is to make it exciting for the teams, for our fans and beneficial for everyone involved.”

2024 Wichita State men’s basketball known schedule

Saturday, Oct. 5: Shocker Madness at Koch Arena

Saturday, Oct. 12: vs. Oklahoma State (closed scrimmage)

Monday, Nov. 4: at Western Kentucky

Saturday, Nov. 9: vs. Montana State

Thursday, Nov. 14: vs. Northern Iowa

Monday, Nov. 18: vs. Monmouth

Friday, Nov. 22: vs. Saint Louis (at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.)

Thursday, Nov. 28: vs. TBD in ESPN Events Invitational (at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla.)

Friday, Nov. 29: vs. TBD in ESPN Events Invitational (at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla.)

Saturday, Dec. 14: at DePaul

Tuesday, Dec. 17: vs. Kansas City

Saturday, Dec. 21: vs. Kansas State

Home only: East Carolina, Tulane and UAB

Away only: Florida Atlantic, Rice and Temple

Home and away: Charlotte, Memphis, North Texas, South Florida, Tulsa and UTSA