NCAA highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down college athletics in mid-March, just as things started to heat up for Wichita State. 

  • The men’s basketball team was 23-8 and about to start American Athletic Conference Tournament play in Fort Worth. The Shockers had a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament for the eighth time in nine seasons.
  • The women’s basketball team finished 16-15, its first winning season since 2015. A win at Intrust Bank Arena over Oklahoma highlighted the non-conference schedule.   
  • Shockers baseball jetted to a 13-2 start under new head coach Eric Wedge. They built a 12-game win streak – longest for the team since 2008 – when the season ended.  
  • Winny Koskei earned AAC Women’s Cross Country Runner of the Year for a second straight season. Koskei, a junior, repeated as conference champion in 2019 and finished third in the NCAA Midwest Regional and 47th in the NCAA Championships.   
Aliphine Tuliamuk heads toward the finish line in the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.GoShockers.com
Aliphine Tuliamuk heads toward the finish line in the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

Aliphine Tuliamuk

Olympian It has been quite a journey for Tuliamuk, who came to Wichita State from Kenya in 2011 to run and study nursing.  

In February, she won the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials with a time of two hours, 27 minutes, 23 seconds in Atlanta. She qualified to run in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed a year by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a Shocker, Tuliamuk won NCAA All-American honors 13 times in track and cross country, highlighted by finishing second in the 10,000 meters in the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Championships. She became an American citizen in 2016.   

"Making the Olympic team will be my way of showing my gratitude to this beautiful nation that has given me so much," she said on NBC in February. 

Esports

Esports are a growing force in college and Wichita State jumped in enthusiastically in 2019 with the gaming lab in the Heskett Center. The lab is free to students, faculty and staff and open during Heskett Center hours.  

The lab features 20 Cybertron computers, Logitech Gaming headsets and keyboards and gaming-speed Internet connection. The monitors are Acer XFA240 and players sit in Respawn Reclining Gaming Chairs.  

Wichita State Campus Recreation sees the lab as a natural extension of its mission, just as basketball courts, intramurals and fitness classes provide leisure activities. The lab is also used by Wichita State’s varsity Esports team, which started in 2018, and competes against other schools in games such as Overwatch, League of Legends, Counter Strike and Rocket League.