SE: Brown, Stokes and Wade Proud of Program’s Growth, But Maintain Hunger for More
Nov 09, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Sports Extra
By Corbin McGuire
There's a list Barry Brown, Jr., Dean Wade and Kamau Stokes came up with this summer. K-State's three seniors made it one day while shooting the breeze — "talking a little trash," as Brown put it — in the Ice Family Basketball Center.
The list's theme: Never Have I Ever.
"We started talking about stuff we've never done," Brown said, "so I told them to make a list and we'll start checking it off."
The conversation, as Wade recalled, started with places the three seniors have never won in the Big 12. Lawrence was the first one they thought of.
"And then it kind of hit us," Wade said.
The trio soon realized they also have not won in Norman, Oklahoma, Morgantown, West Virginia and Lubbock, Texas. Before long, win a tournament — any tournament — was written down. They reached the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight last year, which only leaves two more rounds — Final Four and National Championship. Both made the list.
"We started making a list of all that stuff," Wade said. "It makes us a lot hungrier. This is our last year and our last opportunity."
"Those are the things we look at, like, 'OK, I don't want to leave here my senior year not having done these,'" Stokes added. "It's really another way for us (seniors to stay hungry) because I don't think anybody else but us have seen that list. It's really another way for us to keep that chip on our shoulder and handle business."
Of course, when Stokes, Brown and Wade first got to K-State, that list was endless. They had not accomplished anything. Their slate was clean. The future was uncertain. Looking back, however, it's no surprise those three helped get K-State to this point, where the Wildcats are ranked No. 12/11 heading into the season opener against Kennesaw State in Bramlage Coliseum on Friday at 7 p.m.
It all started on their first day together and, in some ways, before then.
***
Listening to Brown, Wade and Stokes talk about their first interactions with one another is like hearing brothers reminisce. It's part friendly jabs, a bit of nostalgia and, most certainly, some love.
Wade's response, at K-State's media day in September, might be the most telling.
"Our very first interactions," the 6-foot-10 forward started, "I walked in and Kam was tiny. He looks pretty small still, but he's way bigger than he was. Barry's been talking since Day One. The first time I met him, Barry was talking. It was easy to like Barry because he was always conversating with somebody, joking around."
Asked a follow-up about who of the three has changed the most since then, Wade responded with a half-serious joke about Brown.
"Barry's changed the most physically. He got a lot bigger in the weight room. His head doesn't look like it's as big as it was when he was a freshman. When he was a freshman, he was skinny and his head looked huge," Wade, the Preseason Big 12 Player of the Year who's on multiple prestigious watch lists, said. "Now he's got arm tats; he looks like he's tough. He's changed a lot but he's still the same ole' Barry. He's like a kid at heart."
Brown said the trio's relationship started well before they stepped foot on campus. He remembered talking to the other two when they were just K-State commits living in three different states — Wade in Kansas and Brown in Florida for their senior years of high school, and Stokes in Virginia for a year of prep school — not senior leaders on a top-15 ranked team.
"We FaceTimed and tried to get a feel for each other before we got on campus and saw each other's faces," Brown, a Preseason All-Big 12 pick who was also named to the Citizen Naismith Trophy Watch List, said. "I actually saw Dean on my visit. He was up here, being a Kansas kid. He was up on my visit and it was a big football game, so I got a chance to actually meet Dean, interact with him. I talked to Kamau over the phone. I remember talking to him over the phone on FaceTime. He loves to be on FaceTime."
Stokes did not deny his FaceTime addiction, nor did he go into the specifics of those first few interactions with Brown and Wade. He simply smiled and recounted how quickly they all came together.
"I felt like we gelled immediately," he said. "We still have the same personalities. Of course, everybody's gotten better on the court since then. Everybody's gotten bigger since then. But I feel like nothing's really changed. We're still a family. We're still each other's brothers."
Stokes, who suffered a torn ACL as a freshman and a broken foot last season, detailed the seniors' closeness a few different ways.
"We walk into each other's houses unannounced all the time. I feel like that explains it all," he said, before explaining further. "Whenever you can just come around people and just have a good time no matter what, no matter how tough things are, especially with me… they kept me up through everything I've been through. Even the things they go through, we just hold each other up."
Some of the three seniors' immediate chemistry was luck. Who could have predicted three people from completely different places — Wade from a small town in Kansas, Brown from St. Petersburg, Florida, and the Stokes from Baltimore, Maryland — would click like they did?
The common thread between them became their shared desire to win. Their high school teams combined to win five combined state championships. They were used to winning and expected it, in a way, when they became Wildcats. So, while they were part of a seven-man recruiting class at the time, Stokes, Wade and Brown knew it would be on the three of them to help build a successful culture at K-State.
"We knew what we were coming into. We knew we had to get familiar with each other. We knew we had to click in order for our team to be successful," Stokes said. "We all started as freshmen, so we were thrown into the fire right away. We had to get that togetherness in order to play right away like that. I felt like ever since that time we've been building and building and building."
***
As freshmen starters, Wade, Stokes and Brown won 17 games and missed the NCAA Tournament. They went 21-14 the following season and won a First Four battle in the NCAA Tournament to cap it. Last year, despite an injury to Stokes during the season and another to Wade in the postseason, K-State won 25 games and reached the Elite Eight, defeating Kentucky for the first time in program history along the way.
Steadily and consistently, the program grew under those three. It's a fact that's not lost on them in reflection.
"I take a lot of pride in it. When I came my freshman year, D.J. Johnson was one of the guys that told me to make sure I leave the program in a better position than I found it, and I feel like, by listening to the coaches and all the guys' hard work, we've kind of redefined what it is to be a Kansas State basketball player," Brown said. "I feel like we've changed the outlook of our program."
They certainly altered how people outside the program view it. K-State was picked second in the Big 12 Preseason poll, the program's second-highest nod in its history. The Wildcats have also been ranked in the top 15 nationally by an abundance of outlets and even tabbed as a strong Final Four candidate by at least one national pundit.
None of it matters to the three seniors, however. They appreciate the love, but they have their own list of aspirations, literally, to keep a chip on their shoulders and to stay hungry.
"We're where we want to be right now coming into our senior year," Stokes said. "We have a good group of guys that want to compete, we know what we can do this year and we have to bring it every day in order to do that."
There's a list Barry Brown, Jr., Dean Wade and Kamau Stokes came up with this summer. K-State's three seniors made it one day while shooting the breeze — "talking a little trash," as Brown put it — in the Ice Family Basketball Center.
The list's theme: Never Have I Ever.
"We started talking about stuff we've never done," Brown said, "so I told them to make a list and we'll start checking it off."
The conversation, as Wade recalled, started with places the three seniors have never won in the Big 12. Lawrence was the first one they thought of.
"And then it kind of hit us," Wade said.
The trio soon realized they also have not won in Norman, Oklahoma, Morgantown, West Virginia and Lubbock, Texas. Before long, win a tournament — any tournament — was written down. They reached the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight last year, which only leaves two more rounds — Final Four and National Championship. Both made the list.
"We started making a list of all that stuff," Wade said. "It makes us a lot hungrier. This is our last year and our last opportunity."
"Those are the things we look at, like, 'OK, I don't want to leave here my senior year not having done these,'" Stokes added. "It's really another way for us (seniors to stay hungry) because I don't think anybody else but us have seen that list. It's really another way for us to keep that chip on our shoulder and handle business."
Of course, when Stokes, Brown and Wade first got to K-State, that list was endless. They had not accomplished anything. Their slate was clean. The future was uncertain. Looking back, however, it's no surprise those three helped get K-State to this point, where the Wildcats are ranked No. 12/11 heading into the season opener against Kennesaw State in Bramlage Coliseum on Friday at 7 p.m.
It all started on their first day together and, in some ways, before then.
***
Listening to Brown, Wade and Stokes talk about their first interactions with one another is like hearing brothers reminisce. It's part friendly jabs, a bit of nostalgia and, most certainly, some love.
Wade's response, at K-State's media day in September, might be the most telling.
"Our very first interactions," the 6-foot-10 forward started, "I walked in and Kam was tiny. He looks pretty small still, but he's way bigger than he was. Barry's been talking since Day One. The first time I met him, Barry was talking. It was easy to like Barry because he was always conversating with somebody, joking around."
Asked a follow-up about who of the three has changed the most since then, Wade responded with a half-serious joke about Brown.
"Barry's changed the most physically. He got a lot bigger in the weight room. His head doesn't look like it's as big as it was when he was a freshman. When he was a freshman, he was skinny and his head looked huge," Wade, the Preseason Big 12 Player of the Year who's on multiple prestigious watch lists, said. "Now he's got arm tats; he looks like he's tough. He's changed a lot but he's still the same ole' Barry. He's like a kid at heart."
Brown said the trio's relationship started well before they stepped foot on campus. He remembered talking to the other two when they were just K-State commits living in three different states — Wade in Kansas and Brown in Florida for their senior years of high school, and Stokes in Virginia for a year of prep school — not senior leaders on a top-15 ranked team.
"We FaceTimed and tried to get a feel for each other before we got on campus and saw each other's faces," Brown, a Preseason All-Big 12 pick who was also named to the Citizen Naismith Trophy Watch List, said. "I actually saw Dean on my visit. He was up here, being a Kansas kid. He was up on my visit and it was a big football game, so I got a chance to actually meet Dean, interact with him. I talked to Kamau over the phone. I remember talking to him over the phone on FaceTime. He loves to be on FaceTime."
Stokes did not deny his FaceTime addiction, nor did he go into the specifics of those first few interactions with Brown and Wade. He simply smiled and recounted how quickly they all came together.
"I felt like we gelled immediately," he said. "We still have the same personalities. Of course, everybody's gotten better on the court since then. Everybody's gotten bigger since then. But I feel like nothing's really changed. We're still a family. We're still each other's brothers."
Stokes, who suffered a torn ACL as a freshman and a broken foot last season, detailed the seniors' closeness a few different ways.
"We walk into each other's houses unannounced all the time. I feel like that explains it all," he said, before explaining further. "Whenever you can just come around people and just have a good time no matter what, no matter how tough things are, especially with me… they kept me up through everything I've been through. Even the things they go through, we just hold each other up."
Some of the three seniors' immediate chemistry was luck. Who could have predicted three people from completely different places — Wade from a small town in Kansas, Brown from St. Petersburg, Florida, and the Stokes from Baltimore, Maryland — would click like they did?
The common thread between them became their shared desire to win. Their high school teams combined to win five combined state championships. They were used to winning and expected it, in a way, when they became Wildcats. So, while they were part of a seven-man recruiting class at the time, Stokes, Wade and Brown knew it would be on the three of them to help build a successful culture at K-State.
"We knew what we were coming into. We knew we had to get familiar with each other. We knew we had to click in order for our team to be successful," Stokes said. "We all started as freshmen, so we were thrown into the fire right away. We had to get that togetherness in order to play right away like that. I felt like ever since that time we've been building and building and building."
***
As freshmen starters, Wade, Stokes and Brown won 17 games and missed the NCAA Tournament. They went 21-14 the following season and won a First Four battle in the NCAA Tournament to cap it. Last year, despite an injury to Stokes during the season and another to Wade in the postseason, K-State won 25 games and reached the Elite Eight, defeating Kentucky for the first time in program history along the way.
Steadily and consistently, the program grew under those three. It's a fact that's not lost on them in reflection.
"I take a lot of pride in it. When I came my freshman year, D.J. Johnson was one of the guys that told me to make sure I leave the program in a better position than I found it, and I feel like, by listening to the coaches and all the guys' hard work, we've kind of redefined what it is to be a Kansas State basketball player," Brown said. "I feel like we've changed the outlook of our program."
They certainly altered how people outside the program view it. K-State was picked second in the Big 12 Preseason poll, the program's second-highest nod in its history. The Wildcats have also been ranked in the top 15 nationally by an abundance of outlets and even tabbed as a strong Final Four candidate by at least one national pundit.
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— K-State Men's Basketball (@KStateMBB) November 7, 2018
None of it matters to the three seniors, however. They appreciate the love, but they have their own list of aspirations, literally, to keep a chip on their shoulders and to stay hungry.
"We're where we want to be right now coming into our senior year," Stokes said. "We have a good group of guys that want to compete, we know what we can do this year and we have to bring it every day in order to do that."
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