Wichita loves nothing more than a good basketball reason to fill up Charles Koch Arena. This summer, the AfterShocks gave people six good reasons, and fans responded in increasing numbers all the way to confetti and a championship trophy.
On Sunday, the AfterShocks won The Basketball Tournament with an 82-67 victory over Eberlein Drive in front of 9,029 revved-up fans. The team will divide the TBT prize of $1 million.
Attendance in Koch Arena helped the AfterShocks secure home games throughout TBT.
The fans set a Wichita TBT record and spent most of the afternoon on their feet. They wore Wichita State University gear celebrating the “MTXE” era, Missouri Valley Conference titles, the 2013 Final Four and more. They wore AfterShocks jerseys, Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker jerseys and even one from the coach Eddie Fogler era in the late 1980s. The youngest fans wore headphones to dampen the noise.
The crowd surpassed the Koch Arena mark of 7,184, then a TBT-record, in 2019.
“I feel really lucky we were able to play in front of that crowd, especially in a basketball game in August,” guard Conner Frankamp told reporters. “They’re so loud, it’s amazing in there.”
The AfterShocks won six games, four by 12 or more points, in Koch Arena to win their first TBT title in six appearances. Guard Marcus Keene, who led the team with 22 points in the final, earned tournament MVP honors. Guard Nike Sibande joined him on the all-tournament team.
Former Wichita State athletes Frankamp, Markis McDuffie, Rashard Kelly and Trey Wade played important roles. Coach Zach Bush and assistants Garrett Stutz and J.R. Simon are also former Shockers.
That core group of former Shockers, and others such as injured Zach Brown, made their summer plans around the AfterShocks since 2019. The past roster includes Shockers such as Stutz, Clevin Hannah, Cleanthony Early, J.T. Durley, Darral Willis, Shaq Morris, Samajae Haynes-Jones and others. Baker served as general manager earlier in the team’s tenure.
For those former Shockers, the summer basketball is about friendship, nostalgia and a reunion with teammates and fans in Wichita. On Sunday, the AfterShocks pulled Jon Markwell, a long-time fan known for traveling and ending each game-day practice with a three-pointer, into the celebration.
“It shows how much this place means to them,” Bush said. “We put a lot of heart and soul into this.”
In 2019, former Shocker guard Karon Bradley organized the AfterShocks to enter TBT, which started in 2014 and grew in popularity with college alumni teams. TBT carved out a niche in the late-summer sports scene with the backing of ESPN, a few recognizable names, the Elam Ending and a bracket celebration soon adopted by the NCAA.
The AfterShocks also advanced to the TBT semifinals in 2022 and made four appearances in the round of 16.
About Wichita State University
Wichita State University is Kansas' only urban public research university, enrolling more than 23,000 students between its main campus and the WSU Campus of Applied Sciences and Technology (WSU Tech), including students from every state in the U.S. and more than 100 countries. Wichita State and WSU Tech are recognized for being student-centered and innovation-driven.
Located in the largest city in the state with one of the highest concentrations in the United States of jobs involving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), Wichita State University provides uniquely distinctive and innovative pathways of applied learning, applied research and career opportunities for all of our students. The National Science Foundation ranked WSU No. 1 in the nation for aerospace engineering R&D, No. 2 for industry-funded engineering R&D and No. 8 overall for engineering R&D.
The Innovation Campus, which is a physical extension of the Wichita State University main campus, is one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing research/innovation parks, encompassing over 120 acres and is home to a number of global companies and organizations.
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