It’s official: KU, Wichita State to play men’s basketball game Dec. 30 in Kansas City

Gary Bedore
·3 min read
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Kansas and Wichita State will meet in a regular-season men’s basketball game for the first time since January 1993, the Kansas City Sports Commission and KU and WSU athletic departments announced Thursday.

The two teams will square off at a yet-to-be announced time on Saturday, Dec. 30 at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. Tickets for the KU-WSU contest will go on sale at 10 a.m. June 23 and can be purchased via www.t-mobilecenter.com.

“We always enjoy playing in Kansas City at the T-Mobile Center and look forward to facing Wichita State,” KU coach Bill Self said Thursday. “Paul Mills (WSU coach) did a great job rebuilding Oral Roberts and is no stranger to our program from his time as an assistant at Baylor. This will be a great opportunity for fans in the Kansas City area to watch our team over the holidays and it will be a great game for us preparing for Big 12 play.”

Said WSU coach Mills: “We are excited to play this game in Kansas City. This game will be a benefit to fans of both institutions and it will attract national attention between these two tradition rich programs.”

Shockers athletic director Kevin Saal also put out a statement about the game.

“We are appreciative and thankful to both the University of Kansas and the Kansas City Sports Commission & Foundation for the opportunity to participate in this special event for both our men’s basketball program and Shocker Nation,” Saal said in the statement.

“We’ve collaborated on this event these past many months and wish to express our gratitude to Travis Goff, Sean Lester and Bill Self with the University of Kansas and Kathy Nelson with the Kansas City Sports Commission & Foundation. It has been over three decades since our institutions have met in the regular season and we look forward to a renewed relationship between our storied and tradition-rich programs.”

Nelson, president and CEO of the Kansas City Sports Commission, which worked to set up the game in KC, said: “Creating unique sporting experiences for the Kansas City region is an integral part of our mission. Bringing these two teams together at the world-class T-Mobile Center creates a compelling basketball event not just for KU and WSU fans, but fans of the sport itself.”

Kansas leads the all-time series with Wichita State, 12-3. The Jayhawks have won five of the last six meetings. This will be the first regular-season matchup between the two schools since Jan. 6, 1993, a Kansas 103-54 win in Allen Fieldhouse. The next series matchup was the most recent, with WSU winning 78-65 in Omaha, Nebraska, in the second round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament.

Excluding exhibition contests, KU is 48-11 in T-Mobile Center. The Jayhawks won the 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2018 and 2022 Big 12 Tournaments and the 2012 and 2016 CBE Hall of Fame Classics there.

Beginning in 1984-85, KU has played at least one regular-season game in Kansas City in 32 of the last 36 seasons. KU missed 1987-88, 1990-91, 1996-97 and 2022-23. In those seasons the Jayhawks played league tournament and/or NCAA Tournament postseason games in KC. KU is 235-85 in games played in Kansas City.