Having senior leadership is key in the NCAA tournament.  With college basketball shifting more and more to players going for one year and then declaring for the NBA draft, having veteran players can come in very handy in March. Wichita State and coach Greg Marshall have not one senior playmaker but two.  Fred VanFleet and Ron Baker have played their share of NCAA tournament games.  Both were key components as freshmen on the 2012-2013 Shocker team that made it all the way to the Final Four but lost to Louisville.  As sophomores, they returned once again to the tournament as a number-one seed only to be upset by Kentucky, a team headed to the Final Four in the round of 32.  Their junior year they made it back to the Sweet Sixteen before losing to Notre Dame.  Baker and VanFleet are back for one more year and one more deep run in the tournament.  

Team injuries are what found Wichita State playing in a First Four game for the right to make it to the round of 64.  VanFleet missed numerous games due to injury early in the season, and it took the team a while to hit its stride.  As for the Vanderbilt Commodores, they looked just happy to be in the tournament at all, as many projections did not have them receiving an at-large bid.  Vanderbilt had a big advantage inside with star 7-footer Damien Jones but were never able to get him or anything else going.  Jones, who was averaging nearly 14 points a game, was held to a mere 5.  VanFleet and Baker each led the way for Wichita State as they both poured in 14 points a piece.  Anton Brady added 11 more points for the Shockers off the bench.  The Commodores were able to keep the game close in the first half by hitting shots but couldn’t seem to buy a basket in the second half as Wichita state pulled away with an easy win.  Riley LaChance and Joe Toye both scored a team high 10 points for Vandy.

The Shockers move on to play the sixth-seeded Arizona Wildcats in the South bracket on Thursday.  The eleventh-seeded Shockers find themselves underdogs once again, but is a team with their two best players as seniors who have reached a Final Four an underdog?