MVC Basketball: Ranking of 25 best players from last decade (2013-23)
By Joey Loose
18. Tekele Cotton
A 6’3 combo guard originally from Marietta, Georgia, Cotton made his way over to Wichita State back in 2011, becoming an important piece during the greatest era of basketball in Shockers history. In his first season as a starter, he helped lead the Shockers to the Final Four as a 9-seed in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. That tournament came just before the cut-off for this article, though there’s plenty more to talk about in his final two years in Wichita.
He started every game of a junior season where Wichita State entered the NCAA Tournament unbeaten, blitzing through the MVC and the rest of their schedule before falling to Kentucky. Cotton averaged 10.3 points and had a 20-point effort against Indiana State in the MVC Tournament title game. As a senior, he had comparable numbers in a season that ended in the Sweet Sixteen, scoring 19 points in a major upset of Kansas in the second round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
Cotton played an important role in those Shockers’ teams on the defensive end. He was named Second Team All-MVC and Defensive Player of the Year in both of those seasons, clearly starring at times on both sides of the ball for Wichita State. Cotton isn’t necessarily one of the household names from those historic Shockers teams, but the role he played was important and significant, especially with his defensive prowess in the backcourt.