AAC Basketball: 5 biggest takeaways from 2019 recruiting classes

4. New group of Shockers for Wichita State

After seven straight years of 25+ wins and making the NCAA Tournament, Wichita State took a step back in their second year in the AAC. Moving up from the Missouri Valley Conference was expected to be somewhat tough for the program after their former stars graduated.

The hope now is that the underclassmen core from both this year and last year’s recruiting classes are good enough to get the Shockers back into contention. For this group of newcomers specifically, it’s filled with five three-star recruits, along with wing Trey Wade, one of the top JUCO commits in the class.

Tyson Etienne and Grant Sherfield are a pair of talented combo guards that some recruiting outlets have classified as four-star prospects. Noah Fernandes is more of a pure point guard that’ll provide good perimeter depth. And to add more frontcourt talent to replace the graduated Markis McDuffie are forwards DeAntoni Gordon and Josaphat Bilau to round out the group. None of these are projected early NBA Draft prospects but there’s some real talent in this group that can be developed into All-Conference pieces in a few years.

Now in the AAC and could be dealing with a future juggernaut in Memphis, Wichita State will certainly have a tougher time at consistently making the Big Dance. Head coach Gregg Marshall has always been known as an excellent developer of talent and he’ll need to continue that with a completely new roster filled with Shockers.