Coach Paul Mills completes his men’s basketball staff with hire of Wichita State grad

For the second time since announcing his initial staff, first-year men’s basketball coach Paul Mills had a decision to make to replace a member on his staff.

After Luke Gore left his position as director of operations for an assistant coaching position at Princeton in late July, Mills has been on the search to fill his position. The hunt concluded late last week, as Mills tabbed Toby Lane as the next director of basketball operations.

Lane, a 1993 Wichita State graduate, has more than two decades of operations and coaching experience at the Div. I level. According to a release from GoShockers.com, his responsibilities will include scouting, team analysis and strategies and day-to-day operations within the program.

He worked last season as director of operations for Arkansas-Little Rock, while he spent the eight seasons prior to that working at Tulsa — the first six as director of scouting, then the next two as an assistant coach. He has also worked in operations at Missouri (2011-14) and Miami (2007-11), while he was an assistant coach at Southeast Missouri State (2004-07), a video coordinator at Oklahoma (2002-04) and an administrative assistant for Long Beach State (2001-02) at the Div. I level.

“Toby has been involved with high-level basketball for the past few decades and has had a front-row seat for the competitiveness in the AAC,” Mills said in a statement. “He is also a Wichita State graduate, so he knows our institution and the conference. We are excited to welcome Toby and his wife, Carla, back to Wichita. He will add tremendous value in preparing our team to be at our competitive best and add deep connections in recruiting.”

Shocker cross country dominates season-opening meet

The Wichita State cross country team kicked off its 2023 season with the annual JK Gold Classic, but at a new location on a course that runs through what was formerly Clapp Golf Course.

The Shockers delivered their usual dominant performance, as the men’s and women’s teams both easily took home the team titles against a batch of in-state Div. II, junior college and NAIA competition. It was the sixth straight year the women have won the meet championship.

The WSU women’s team registered a perfect team score of 15 points, led by newcomer Lucy Ndungu, a junior-college transfer from Cloud County who won the 5,000-meter race in a personal-best time of 17 minutes, 42 seconds.

“She’s been looking really easy in practice and I think the biggest thing was the summer training she did,” WSU coach Kirk Hunter told GoShockers.com. “She really upped her game a lot this summer and increased her mileage base and it was pretty impressive. It really paid off today because she looked really good.”

She was followed by teammates Sarah Bertry (third, 18:02), Lubna Aldulaimi (fourth, 18:04), Miranda Dick (fifth, 18:05), Jenna Muma (seventh, 18:50) and Peyton Pogge (eighth, 19:04). Another newcomer, freshman Isabelle Hartnett, ran unattached and finished sixth in a time of 18:43.

Adam Rzentowski, a junior transfer from Central Michigan, ran unattached and won the individual men’s title with a time of 18 minutes, 9 seconds on the 6,000-meter course. He was followed by WSU teammates Iestyn Williams (second, 18:16), Jackson Caldwell (third, 18:20), Maize South graduate Trey Rios (fourth, 18:21) and Zander Cobb (fifth, 18:22).

WSU has two weeks off before a step up in competition when the team will compete at the Greeno-Dirksen Invitational hosted by Nebraska on Saturday, Sept. 16.