Landry Shamet wasn’t worried. ‘I was a third-grade quarterback’

The pass was there, it was just a matter of the Wichita State player in-bounding the ball realizing it.

Conner Frankamp, a 6-foot guard trying to see through 6-8 Tre Scott, missed Landry Shamet streaking wide open without a defender within 20 feet of him on an in-bounds play with 19.6 seconds left. That play eventually ended in a turnover and Cincinnati cutting WSU’s lead to two points with 13 seconds remaining.

WSU coach Gregg Marshall called timeout and he said there was never a doubt on what play he was going to.

“It’s been open for about a week now and Conner can’t make the play,” Marshall said. “He can’t throw over the big guy on the ball. It was open last game, it was open this game, but Conner just won’t let it go.”

So Marshall called for the same play with different personnel. This time the 6-4 Shamet took the ball out with the option to throw deep to Austin Reaves, who would pretend to set a screen for Frankamp, then slip it and streak down the court.

Shamet said he never looked at anyone else. His pass hit Reaves in stride and the sophomore finished a reverse layup to all but seal No. 19 WSU’s 76-72 victory over No. 5 Cincinnati at BB&T Arena on Sunday afternoon. It was the defining play as WSU ended the nation’s longest home winning streak of 39 games by Cincinnati.

“I just knew he was going to be open, I don’t know how to explain it to you, I just knew,” Shamet said. “I felt comfortable. I was a third-grade quarterback on my football team.”

In its late-game press, Cincinnati sold out for steals, aggressively jumping the passing lanes of the WSU players coming back to the ball. Marshall and Shamet both had confidence the same would be true again, leaving the fate of the game to the execution of Shamet and Reaves.

Reaves did his first job, which was to sell the screen and made his defender freeze for a second, then he went streaking free, a full 10 feet ahead of Scott, the trailing defender. Shamet’s one-handed pass hit Reaves in stride, but Scott had caught up enough to be side-by-side with Reaves when he took off for the lay-up.

Reaves twirled his body to shield the ball and finished on the other side of the goal, using his right hand to flip the ball in for a reverse layup with 11 seconds left for a 74-70 lead.

“Just make a play,” Reaves said when asked what was going through his head. “As a basketball player, you live for those moments. So in your head, it’s just ‘make a play,’ ‘make the right play,’ and ‘get the win.’ ”

Calling the game on ESPN’s broadcast, Fran Fraschilla wasn’t surprised to see Marshall dip into a play like that with the game on the line.

“Typical Gregg Marshall,” Fraschilla said, laughing after the game. “That doesn’t happen without the confidence of his team in him and his confidence in his team. They have a high rate of execution, so that’s not as dangerous of a play as it looks if you practice it over and over again and knowing Gregg Marshall, I’m sure they have.”

Cincinnati responded with a basket with eight seconds left, but couldn’t foul WSU quick enough and Shamet passed ahead to Shaquille Morris for a slam dunk in the final second to seal the victory.

The sequence befuddled Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin, who said he drew up the exact play WSU used in his huddle and told his players to watch for them to slip the screen and streak down the court.

“And we still let it happen, which tells you right now where we are at mentally,” Cronin said. “In this game, you have to play hard, play together, and you have to play with humility. Our defensive breakdowns are mind-boggling, to be quite honest with you, but when you don’t have humility, it’s not a surprise. When you don’t have humility, you don’t pay attention, you don’t listen, you’re not willing to do what it takes and you get beat and exploited.”

This story was originally published February 18, 2018 at 7:56 PM with the headline "Landry Shamet wasn’t worried. ‘I was a third-grade quarterback’."