Wichita Sky Kings hope to bring quality on and off basketball court in debut pro season

The Wichita Sky Kings, the city’s new professional basketball team, is trying to pull off the delicate balance of putting a quality product on the court with plenty of off-court entertainment to entice fans in their debut season.

It’s the latest venture from businessman Ben Hamd, who has investments in Wichita, as he tries to spark interest in a new basketball team in Wichita.

He is offering competitive pay to attract qualified pros and he has already rented out and paid for an entire season’s worth of games for the team to play at Koch Arena, which has instantly made the Sky Kings a premier destination in The Basketball League.

To try to drum up interest for opening weekend, Hamd has enlisted the services of actor Brian Baumgartner, best known for his role as Kevin Malone on the hit sitcom The Office, for a meet-and-greet with fans at the Sky Kings’ opening week of games on March 17 and 19.

While Hamd is taking care of the marketing and entertainment side, he has left the basketball side up to coach Sean Flynn, who was the Pratt Community College men’s basketball coach from 2018-21.

Less than a month from the start of the season, Flynn is confident the Sky Kings will bring Wichita basketball fans entertainment.

“We are bringing in legitimate pro guys who take this seriously and know their basketball,” Flynn said. “Ben is incredible with the game-day experience stuff and he’s going to have a lot of celebrity cameos at the games. You take that and combine it with a good product on the floor and this is going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to have a team that can really shoot the ball.”

The most notable player signing is Teddy Allen, who rose to stardom last college basketball season at New Mexico State, where he scored 37 points to lead the Aggies to an NCAA tournament upset over Connecticut. Allen also spent a year redshirting with the Shockers, but ultimately never played for the team.

Allen helped recruit two other former New Mexico State players in Terrell Brown, a guard who shot 43% on 3s in a season and was a former all-WAC player, and Johnny McCants, a 6-foot-7 forward who was an all-WAC defensive team player under Chris Jans last season.

It’s clear that Flynn has targeted shooting, as he tapped into his college coaching contacts to recruit players. He points out that every player on Wichita’s roster has made at least 40% of their 3-pointers at some level, whether it was in college or in the professional ranks.

“We’ve got guys one through five that can shoot the rock,” Flynn said. “Everyone on our team is capable of shooting it.”

That helped him land some of the top shooters available in Charlie Marquardt, a former Division 2 sharpshooter who hit 14 3-pointers in a game in TBL play last season, Kam Williams, a 2018 Ohio State graduate who averaged 17.1 points in Denmark last year, and Matt Cerruti, a recent Albany grad who made 45% of his 3-pointers and averaged 11.3 points last season.

Other signings include veteran point guard Derrick Colter, a 4-year starter at Duquesne who has played overseas in France, Ukraine, Switzerland and Portugal, Jachai Simmons, a 6-7 swing man who averaged 21 points in the TBL last season, Julian Winton, a 2018 Tabor graduate who averaged 25 points in the TBL last season, and Damari Milstead, who just wrapped up his college career by averaging 12.1 points at Cal State Fullerton.

The team is currently holding training camp with two-a-day practices at Calvary Church on Rock Road and holds lifting sessions at The Phoenix downtown. Flynn said Wichita will play in two scrimmages before the season and he hopes to make an addition or two when the NBA G-League season ends.

“We’ve got guys who have played pro ball in a ton of countries,” Flynn said. “And then we’ve got an assortment of rookies who are just coming out and played at a high level. Maybe they missed the boat on getting in the G-League or just came late, but this is a good starting ground for a lot of these guys.”