Wichita State, then known as Fairmount College, first took the court in 1906 under head coach Willis Bates. During this time, the sports teams were known as the "Wheatshockers". The first official game was held in the basement of Fairmount Hall. Fairmount lost to
Washburn University by a score of 37–10. During this inaugural season, the Wheatshockers only won two games. Fairmount acquired a permanent home when Memorial Gymnasium was opened on January 15, 1921, in a game against the American Legion of Wichita. The gym was later renamed Henrion Gymnasium in 1926. That same year, the newly renamed Municipal University of Wichita (popularly known as "WU") joined the Central Conference in athletics. WU gained notice outside of Wichita in 1927 when, led by First-Team All-American
Ross McBurney and Second-Team All-American Harold Reynolds, the Wheatshockers finished the 1927 season with a 13–1 record and a second-place finish behind conference champions
Pittsburg State University.
Early success Shocker basketball achieved greater success with the arrival of Coach
Ralph Miller and
Cleo Littleton in 1951. Littleton averaged 18.2 points per game as a freshman, a school record that still stands today. He was the first player west of the Mississippi to score 2,000 points in his college career and is one of only five Wichita State players to have his number retired. He was also one of the first African American players in the Missouri Valley Conference, which it joined in 1945. Littleton averaged 19 points per game during his career and he still owns 7 school records. Due to this success, Wichita State decided to construct a new home for the Shockers. Through appropriated money by the WU Board of Regents, Wichita State was able to construct a new field house for the men's basketball team, costing $1.4 million. On December 3, 1955, the Shockers played their first game in WU Field House in front of more than 9,000 fans. Dave Stallworth entered the program in the 1961–62 season. Nicknamed "The Rave", Stallworth became the Shockers' first consensus All-American in 1964. He finished with a career scoring average of 24.2 points per game and was second on the all-time scoring list with 1,936 points. During his 13-year stint at WSU, Ralph Miller became the winningest coach in Shocker basketball history, collecting 255 victories. Miller is a member of the
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and currently ranks as the eighth-winningest coach in college basketball history.
Elite Eight appearance and sanctions . In 1981, the Shockers would return to the NCAA tournament, defeating the
Kansas Jayhawks 66–65 in the "Battle of New Orleans" before being defeated by
LSU 96–85 in the Elite Eight. The 1980–81 team featured two future NBA players –
Cliff Levingston and
Antoine Carr, who would be chosen in the first 10 picks of the
NBA draft. Carr, a local star from Wichita, would become WSU's third All-American in 1983, averaging 22.2 points a game during his senior season, and finishing his career with 1,911 points while shooting 55.7 percent. Levingston would average 15.7 and 18.5 points per game while leading the team in scoring his freshman and sophomore years, before declaring early for the NBA Draft. Another future NBA player,
Xavier McDaniel, would arrive the year after the Elite Eight season. McDaniel scored 2,152 points at Wichita State, second all-time behind Littleton, and set the school record with 1,359 rebounds. In
1984–85, McDaniel became the first player in NCAA Division I history to lead the nation in scoring (27.2 points per game) and rebounding (14.8 per game) in the same season. In 1982, Wichita State would be placed under NCAA probation for the 1982–83 and 1983–84 seasons, regarding improper actions of former assistant coaches in the late 1970s. In nine seasons, Smithson won 155 games, placing him second in school history behind Ralph Miller. Smithson was the first coach to guide WSU to consecutive 20-win seasons. During the four-year span from 1980 to 1984, WSU produced a 92–29 record, the best four-year span in team history at the time. but the Shockers would struggle for much of the rest of the season, falling from the rankings and finishing 17–14, including only eight conference wins, for Turgeon's second worst mark as WSU head coach. Head Coach Mark Turgeon left Wichita State on April 10, 2007, after a seven-year run and a 128–90 record, (at the time) the third winningest coach in Shocker history behind Ralph Miller and Gene Smithson. On April 14, 2007, Gregg Marshall was announced as 26th head men's basketball coach at Wichita State. In the 2011–12 season, they continued to improve under Marshall's guidance. In winning the regular season MVC title at 16–2 (26–4 overall), the Shockers reached a ranking of #14 in the coaches poll and #15 in the AP poll. After losing to
Illinois State in the semi-finals of the MVC tourney in St. Louis, the Shockers were selected at large for the NCAA tournament as a 5 seed, their first NCAA Tournament in 6 years. They fell to
VCU 62–59, ending the season with a 27–6 record. Heading into the 2012–2013 season, despite being the reigning regular-season champions, the Shockers were predicted to finish fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference. Wichita State went into the season having lost five of the top six scorers from the previous season, including
Joe Ragland,
Toure' Murry, Garrett Stutz, Ben Smith, and David Kyles. Despite the losses, the Shockers went on to win their first 9 games, including the
Cancún Challenge, as well as 15 of their first 16, and 19 of their first 21. Wichita struggled in conference-play, however, losing three in a row in late January and early February. Nevertheless, the Shockers would eventually play rival
Creighton in the final game of the season for the outright conference championship, losing in
Omaha. In the
2012–13 NCAA tournament, the Shockers upset top-seeded
Gonzaga to move on to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2006, followed by a 72–58 win over
La Salle for their first Elite Eight appearance since 1981. They defeated
Ohio State 70–66 for their first Final Four appearance since 1965, as well as their 30th win of the season, a then-Wichita State record. In the Final Four, Wichita State was defeated by the #1 overall seed and eventual tournament champion
Louisville, 72–68 but that game was later
vacated in 2018 by the NCAA. The 2013–14 season proved to be historic and possibly the greatest season in Shocker history. The Shockers cracked the top 10 at #2 in the nation in both major polls, for the first time since December 2006. It was the highest that the Shockers had been ranked that late in the season in school history. On February 25, with a win over
Bradley, the Shockers became just the 11th Division I team to start the season 30–0. They were also the first team to do so solely in the regular season, as the prior 10 teams reached that mark in the postseason. A week later, with a dominating 68–45 win over
Missouri State, the Shockers became the first Division I team to finish the regular season 31–0. The Shockers ran the table with the
2014 Missouri Valley Conference men's basketball tournament, winning all three games by double digits. This was the first time Wichita State won the Valley Tournament since 1987. The Shockers received the #1 ranking in the Midwest Region of the
2014 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. Wichita State blew out their first opponent,
Cal Poly, to become the first team in the history of college basketball to advance to a record of 35–0 (a mark matched by Kentucky in the 2014–15 season). The Shockers season ended with an instant classic of a game with the
Kentucky Wildcats on a missed 3-pointer at the buzzer. Their final record ended up being 35–1.
Marshall departure and decline After the 2019–20 season, eight Shockers players entered the NCAA transfer portal, with seven eventually leaving the program. During this period, several former players alleged a pattern of physical and verbal abuse of players, leading to the university hiring a St. Louis-based law firm to conduct an independent investigation. Marshall resigned shortly before the 2020–21 season, with Wichita State buying out his contract for $7.75 million over six years. Assistant coach
Isaac Brown was named interim head coach for 2020–21. In Brown's first year, he took the Shockers to the NCAA Tournament but lost to Drake in the First Four. During the season, he was named full-time head coach. The following 2 seasons, the Shockers would finish 32–28 and were not invited to any postseason tournament. This led to Wichita State firing Brown on March 11, 2023. Wichita State hired
Paul Mills on March 22, 2023. ==Rivalries==