LOS ANGELES — Meet the Shockers.
They are not so much a band of misfits as they are a band of brothers — brothers with divergent backgrounds but with a common trait in that they are just a little bit hungrier than everyone else.
That hunger, which comes from not being wanted elsewhere, is what has driven Wichita State from a team that entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 9 seed with modest expectations to the improbable Final Four berth it earned on Saturday night with its West Regional upset victory over No. 2 seed Ohio State at Staples Center.
Every year in the NCAA Tournament we get stories like this. We just have little idea which team is going emerge to play the starring role in sabotaging everybody’s office-pool brackets.
That team this year is Wichita State, a team that could not even win its own conference regular-season title or tournament, a team that lost games to 21-15 Evansville (twice), Southern Illinois (14-18), Indiana State (18-16) and Northern Iowa (21-16).
You think those teams thought Wichita State was headed for the Final Four just a month or two after they had beaten the Shockers?
Not even the Wichita State players dared to dream so big.
But here they are, headed to Atlanta to play Louisville in the Final Four.
The fascinating element to the Shockers knocking off Gonzaga, the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, and Ohio State, the No. 2 seed in the West, is that they’ve done it the unconventional way.
Most mid-major teams that go on NCAA Tournament runs have rosters constructed with continuity, with players who’ve played together for two, three, even four years.
Wichita State has done this with five new starters from a year ago, when they lost their top five scorers. It has done it with three former junior college players in their first year with the program who are starters.
The Shockers have done it rag-tag and stop-gap and that is what makes them beautiful.
Start with senior guard Malcolm Armstead, who left the University of Oregon, sat out a year and enrolled at Wichita State paying full tuition because there was not a scholarship available.
During his year away from basketball, Armstead worked at an auto dealership as a runner — “a legal runner,’’ he said — to put money away to pay off the huge student loans he’ll face when he graduates.
“You’ve got to take some gambles in life and sometimes the gambles pay off,’’ Armstead, who played for Shockers assistant coach Greg Heiar in junior college, said. “People in my neighborhood were like, ‘Why are you doing this? You can play for free somewhere.’ But my family was behind me 100 percent. I love them to death. They allowed me to pursue my dreams.’’
Then there is Cleanthony Early, a Middletown, N.Y., product who went to Sullivan Community College upstate before going to far-away Kansas to chase his dream.
“Last year, I was playing D-III JUCO watching this on TV, just watching it,’’ Early said. “Now I’m looking at a hat that says ‘Final Four Atlanta 2013’ with my team on it. It’s crazy.”
Senior forward Carl Hall, the muscle in the Shockers’ starting five, transferred from Northwest Florida State. There’s a prize waiting for you at the door if you can name where that institution of higher learning is located (Niceville, Fla.).
Hall survived a powerful Deshaun Thomas elbow to the face on a drive to the hoop that looked like it might send him to the hospital for reconstructive surgery. Early outplayed Thomas, a likely future NBA lottery pick. Armstead dominated Ohio State point guard Aaron Craft, who had become one of the stars of the NCAA Tournament.
“I just feel like we’ve got that same potential as those guys regardless if they know who we are or not,’’ Early said.
“They’re a band of brothers,’’ Shockers coach Gregg Marshall said. “They talk about being brothers. They act like they’re brothers, and they continually pick each other up. That’s how we’ve been able to persevere and overcome so much adversity this season.’’
Armstead said there are “things off the court that carry onto the court’’ that bonds this group of Shockers.
“A brotherhood,’’ he said.