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WSU Athletic Director Kevin Saal drops in to talk everything Shockers.
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00:04all right welcome back in everybody it is sports daily we got the prairie fire coffee
00:08brewed up we're gonna need it monday morning we joined now by kevin salt wichita state athletic
00:14director glad to have you in kevin we're all gonna need coffee monday morning coming off of
00:19a 10 p.m tip time in a game we kind of been waiting for for a long time happy
00:24basketball
00:24season how are you hey good morning thanks for having us on happy basketball season to you guys
00:30and looking forward to this fantastic opportunity on sunday night let's let's before we get to sunday
00:37night let's review last night home opener um energy felt pretty good shockers down a couple of key
00:43players get a get a double digit win will berg maybe on the way to a conference player of the
00:50year type year if all goes well what'd you think of the opener yeah it's a lot of things to
00:56talk
00:56about with the opener first i think just uh really really proud of our fans and and our team
01:02administrative team that's worked really hard to uh all the renewals and everything that we've talked
01:07about on your show we don't necessarily need to revisit that but we had the largest opening uh
01:11opening crowd of the paul mills era which is a nice step forward a little over 6 300 we spent
01:17uh
01:18i believe it was monday night a lot of the fraternities and sororities do their chapter
01:21meetings so we went around uh i don't know a half a dozen and and talked to our students about
01:26our
01:26basketball program got them all fired up and uh it was kind of a fun night and challenged them to
01:31a
01:31thousand students a game we were just short i think we were like 880 but it was one of the
01:35larger
01:35student crowds that that we'd had i think last year's hope opener had about 597 so a market increase
01:42there uh really good when you get to the floor obviously there's some really uncomfortable
01:47moments in the in the second half and you start to dive in i went home after media last night
01:53and
01:53watched the game again i think some of the things that really really stick out to you is you know
01:59we
01:59only had three turnovers and and two of those were charges um so the ball security was the best that
02:05we've seen here in the last you know handful of years uh by by far uh really quick pace we
02:12had 75
02:13possessions so we shot uh in spots i think we shot well we were uh 40 percent uh from free
02:21in the first
02:21half eight at 20 and then we went 0 for 7 in the second so at times the shooting was
02:27good and at times
02:29it was it was really down which i i think you kind of get with first game jitters and game
02:34one uh but
02:36will's night was was tremendous 26 and and 16 i think you know paul mills teams are going to take
02:43care of the ball and they're going to rebound the ball and so when we came in at half we
02:47were minus
02:47seven on the glass and uh certainly that was discussed at a pretty high level um and we ended up
02:54going plus five in the second half but those two teams last night uh albeit we've got 12 of last
03:00year's 15 players coming back and they only had one but both of those teams and those head coaches
03:05were top 10 in the country and rebounding last year so that was a really good rebounding test for us
03:10early on um i think you saw something a little bit different than you saw last year with kenyan giles
03:17having eight assists um jordan having seven i don't i think kenyan would tell you he didn't have his best
03:23shooting night um so there's a lot of there's a lot of good things a lot of positive things and
03:28there's a lot of things that we've got to clean up and work on but the the good thing is
03:33it's game
03:33one and we got 32 more of these things and we're going to get better along the way we got
03:39a really
03:39good test on sunday night kevin i want to talk about uh a pretty nice surprise uh leading up to
03:47the game
03:47with emmanuel okafor uh back and not just back uh officially on the team but back in the lineup
03:53getting some minutes uh tweeting that picture of his jersey uh before uh game day on social media
03:58uh talk about how that worked out i know he'd been already been practicing with the team and
04:03and a part of um a part of um some warm-ups and uh scrimmages and those sort of things
04:09uh talk about
04:11having him back and uh i'm sure a very nice surprise for some fans at the game who probably
04:16didn't notice until until game time yeah well it's been a a wild 48 hours prior to that obviously
04:24it started last thursday just devastating news for noah and his family and obviously our hearts and
04:30our prayers are are with him um as you know paul talked about a post-game press conference last
04:37night he's got jones fracture in his foot which is pretty common um it happens frequently and it
04:44just hasn't healed the way it needs to heal so the family and the doctors and our basketball staff made
04:49the decision to shut it down and um and go back in and and and redo that surgery so it's
04:55about a 16 week
04:56um uh non-weight-bearing uh element and then um you've got the rehab after that so for all intents
05:05and purposes shuts him down and um as paul mentioned last night the staff started talking
05:10about obviously emmanuel was on campus he's taking classes trying to graduate december with full
05:15intention to transfer somewhere you know mid-year because we didn't have the roster spot and so
05:20i know the perception looks like this for that and that quid pro quo piece but that that couldn't
05:26be any further from the truth the roster spot that we were not planning on opening up obviously opened
05:31up and and emmanuel was so it has had great interest in filling that and so then that launches a
05:37pretty extensive process i got to hand it to cory torgeson and ethan height in our compliance office
05:43and we spent a lot of time together walking through all the components to make sure that uh that e
05:50-man
05:50hadn't uh professionalized himself since he left which was pretty easy process because he was always
05:56planning to come back he had a waiver that was outstanding that ultimately got denied and then
06:01you had all the five for five eligibility court cases he's on the kentucky injunction and is currently
06:06eligible for that injunction and and so all those pieces fell into place uh we made sure to dot our
06:13i's
06:14and cross our t's from a compliance standpoint because obviously the the consequences if if if you play an
06:21ineligible player are pretty steep uh not only for the player but for the team and the head coach and
06:26and then we met with the league and we walked through the whole scenario with the league and and we
06:30got
06:30notification i believe it was yesterday mid to late morning uh that the league agreed with our assessment
06:36that he was eligible and then from that point forward it was game on so um it it all just
06:42kind of fell
06:42into place and and what she ended up having last night was you know you had a one point game
06:47with what
06:48three or four minutes to go and and uh e-man gave you seven minutes um scored a field goal
06:54um got knocked
06:56down some rebounds so certainly he had an impact on the game yeah and and he will it's interesting
07:01kevin because we we look at that and we see the way will berg played and paul mills told us
07:08a couple
07:08weeks ago he thought berg could could be good enough to be the player of the year and you're like
07:13okay
07:13last year he and e-man sort of split the role a little bit now you have sear malanga too
07:18it has become
07:19this position especially with the core four of strength uh i i man i to find bigs like that isn't
07:26easy
07:27and the shockers have three of them i think that's a i think that's a nod to the coaching staff
07:31i i you
07:31look at that there aren't going to be a lot of teams that can run that kind of size out
07:35there
07:37there's no question it is absolutely a nod to the coaching staff and obviously appreciation for those
07:42guys trusting us and coming coming to be a part of what we're trying to do here i'm telling you
07:47guys
07:47throughout the summer we we all get busy with a lot of different things and one thing that remained
07:52consistent uh this summer was will berg was in the gym uh if the ball was bouncing and i heard
07:57it coming
07:57in early in the morning he was there if i left after five he was there um he has really
08:03worked hard to
08:04change his game over the summer and and i think you see a little bit more strength the mobility and
08:10the
08:10lateral the footwork piece is a little bit better i mean he was not catching and and putting in lobs
08:15in
08:15the same jump last year and and um i thought his defensive presence was better um so to have the
08:22depth that we have and obviously e-man's going to have to work into this thing a little bit because
08:26he hasn't had the advantage of practicing with the team for the last four months and all those pieces but
08:31it is a lot of depth and it's a lot of height and a lot of length that should should
08:35serve us well
08:36and i i you know i think i haven't studied the roster but i think southern cal's got three seven
08:40footers so we're going to certainly need to to counteract that with with some of our height and
08:45our length well go ahead jacob you got something yeah i was just gonna say we were just looking at
08:52southern cal and having fun because we don't know i mean like everybody we're just trying to learn on
08:57the fly three guys former nba players kids like obviously they're going to be athletic i just these
09:04opportunities and and it looks like if we look at the non-con on by ken palm you know those
09:11matchups
09:12we've all kind of circled it's gonna maybe be four or five top 70 or higher uh games on neutral
09:19courts
09:19or road games and then of course whatever memphis turns into it does feel like right now maybe there's
09:27a chance this isn't a must win the conference tournament to get into the ncaa tournament feel
09:33to this season through one game yeah well i and i would say that was the intent that's always the
09:39intent with the schedule and um you know sometimes i know it's a sign of the times changing and and
09:45head coaches throughout the league don't like it and it's some you know sometimes in the country you
09:50got coaches that are more concerned about keeping jobs and creating at large schedules that's certainly
09:55not the case here um because you've got a southern cal you got a kentucky you got boise state new
10:01mexico you got a neutral with k state you got all those uh really really good games and then you
10:06you
10:06fold in our league and you got two against tulsa two against memphis two against south florida
10:12um it should be a really really strong schedule that uh provide again you got to go out and win
10:16the games but provided you you have some competitive success uh should put you in a position for an at
10:22-large
10:23you know kevin uh yesterday we had taylor eldridge uh on the show and uh talked about an article that
10:29he had out on wichita eagle that came out i think it was came out yesterday morning uh about the
10:35world champions wall at coke arena so another cool thing uh for folks to check out i'm sure a lot
10:41of
10:41bands were able to check that out yesterday but uh he was telling us about the pretty cool way all
10:46that
10:46came together to recognize those uh shockers who've gone on to win uh world championships and
10:54boy when you go through that list you're really kind of reminded of of the legacy that uh wichita
11:00state wichita state has not just in college sports but uh professional sports uh all across the globe
11:06yeah i think what's really cool about that not dissimilar to the whole scenario that we just talked
11:12about with noah and with with eman i just feel like when you got a lot of people that that
11:18are united
11:19and aligned and and there's great communication and people trust each other stuff like that happens
11:24and i just give you an example of that wall you know i think it was like oh guys it
11:30was probably in
11:32late march early april and i think uh roger was on a uh a cruise with his wife and he
11:39calls me and i
11:39could tell he was kind of in a sketchy spot reception wise and and i asked him where he was
11:45and i think he
11:45was either in like spain or france or some version of that what was like eight o'clock central time
11:50i
11:50said roger it's like 1 a.m what are you doing and uh and he said look i got this
11:55idea because i guess
11:56it would have been june uh because of landry and went in the championship and so we started to talk
12:01through all that and and spent most of the summer researching it guys you just you wouldn't believe
12:06some of the names that popped up in in those three major sports and then the olympic success that
12:11we've had here so it's been a really exciting project obviously incredibly appreciative of
12:16the scofield foundation roger and his wife and uh for doing that it's a huge graphic element folks
12:22are going to really enjoy taking a look at that and it's designed in such a way that we can
12:27expand
12:27it and the whole intent of that graphic is is to communicate to young people and to our fans that
12:33you can certainly uh establish a pathway for uh global success through wichita state so it's a
12:40it's a pretty neat element uh pretty neat add to charles coke arena we'll be looking forward to it at
12:46charles coke arena it's the big game uh sunday here we go it we've we've been looking forward to this
12:53for a long time i can't wait to see how they stack up uh against a big 10 team there
12:58and then it's a
12:59couple of chances to come back home next week wednesday and saturday i assume tickets available
13:05for friends in austin p oh yeah absolutely it's called three one six nine seven eight fans uh had
13:12a little bit north of sixty three hundred last night um you know hopefully we have some success here this
13:18uh this sunday and and we can continue to ramp that up uh next week but it was a good
13:23environment last
13:24night uh but but again make no mistake a thousand students and and consistently over eight thousand
13:31nine thousand and eventually we'll get to the spot where we want uh where we get what we want which
13:37is a sold out coke arena it is a process to get to that but a great start last night
13:42and and certainly
13:43appreciate the crowd's uh um involvement and helping us get that win last night after sunday six of the
13:49next eight at home lots of chances to go see what looks like a really good shockers team kevin we
13:54appreciate it all right guys thanks so much for having us on the show go shockers there goes kevin
14:00saw wichita state athletic director we'll come back we'll digest