It is done. The Wichita State Shockers finished their regular season Sunday and are undefeated. I don’t care what conference you’re in, that’s an incredible achievement. But not many people agree with that statement.
Wichita State hasn’t exactly played a Wisconsin or Kansas-level schedule. Their best win is a road victory over St. Louis. After that? BYU and Tennessee. Wichita State could go into the NCAA tournament with one win over a tournament team.
One could use this to say that Wichita State is the most overrated team in the country, a team that would have as many as 10 losses if they played a true schedule with a tough conference and premier non-conference opponents.
On the other side, one could use the undefeated angle to argue that the Shockers belong at the top of the rankings because they are the only team that is not proven to be defeatable.
Both of those arguments are fairly wrong. Wichita State is ranked No. 8 (RPI), No. 4 (BPI), No. 5 (KenPom), No. 15 (Sagarin). It belongs in the top 10, just probably not ahead of Florida or Arizona.
Going undefeated is an achievement that implies a team has an incredibly high floor of execution. If going undefeated with a soft schedule is so easy, then why are we seeing it for the first time in 10 years?
Wichita State didn’t plan this. Their head coach Gregg Marshall didn’t sit in his evil lair, put his pinkie to his mouth and say “We shall use an easy schedule to go undefeated and become the No. 1 team in the country, muhahaha!”
Marshall wanted to play big teams. It’s the big teams that have refused to play the Shockers. It was Kansas that rejected a home-and-home proposal from Wichita State.
Kansas gains nothing from scheduling them. Until the Shockers prove their recent run of dominance isn’t a fluke, they won’t be a marquee matchup that will sell tickets at Phog Allen Fieldhouse. If the Jayhawks win? Whoo, they beat the little brother of their little brother, Kansas State. If they lose? Oh my God, they lost to a college with a 95.2 percent admission rate.
You can’t really blame Kansas for not doing something that carries far more risk than reward. Other power conference teams shy away from scheduling Wichita State because by doing so, they run the risk of going into a Wisconsin-TCU situation. Remember the Rose Bowl where Wisconsin represented not just the Big Ten, but every power conference’s Goliath against TCU’s supposed David? If the Badgers lost, it was an upset and if they won, then TCU was just overrated to begin with.
Is Wichita State the best team in the country? Probably not. Do they belong outside of the top 10? Almost definitely not. Is there a way to prove any of this? No.
And God help anyone who uses an NCAA tournament loss as evidence to cry “overrated!” Losing in the tournament is an inevitability for all but one lucky team, not an exposure.
Unless it’s a first-round game, then yeah, go nuts.
What do you think about this year’s Wichita State Shockers? Let Jack know at jfbaer@wisc.edu.
