Conner Frankamp on career-high in NCAA loss: "I would have rather scored zero"

Conner Frankamp had just played his best game in a Wichita State uniform, the type of shooting performance all of the fans in Wichita so desperately wanted to see from him for the last three years.

He had made six three-pointers and single-handedly willed Wichita State to the finish line with a career-high 27 points, easily topping his previous-best of 19.

But Frankamp's best performance would be denied by Marshall, as fourth-seeded WSU sputtered down the stretch and was upset 81-75 by 13th-seeded Marshall on Friday in San Diego in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

After it was done, Frankamp wished he could have accomplished more by scoring less.

"It felt good, but not good enough," Frankamp said. "I would have rather scored zero points and have us advance. But us as a team, we just didn't do enough."

It was the end of a storied basketball career in Wichita.

Frankamp represented his country on the international stage, became the City League's career scoring leader while playing at North High, signed with Kansas out of high school as a top-50 recruit, then ended up as a trusted player in Gregg Marshall's rotation the last three years at Wichita State.

But on Friday, Frankamp was stuck on what he never accomplished.

"I never advanced past the first weekend in my entire college career, which is something I definitely was not really expecting," Frankamp said, seeming almost stunned saying it aloud for the first time.

When WSU missed 10 of its first 11 three-pointers and fell behind by seven points in the first half, it was Frankamp who rallied the Shockers.

He scored 14 first-half points and led an 11-1 rally to close the half that built a 37-34 advantage.

"Conner picked us up," WSU senior Shaquille Morris said. "Nobody was really playing well and we needed someone to pick us up and Conner did."

"Thank goodness he showed up and played as well as he did," WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. "Otherwise, it would have been even worse."

When Marshall tried to pull in front midway through the second half, Frankamp was there with back-to-back three-pointers to restore WSU's lead, 65-62, with 7:52 remaining.

His fallaway jumper pulled WSU ahead 70-69 three minutes later, then his sixth triple of the game cut Marshall's lead to 78-75 with 46 seconds left and gave WSU a chance in the final minute.

"That's just who Conner Frankamp is," WSU senior Rashard Kelly said. "It's just sad that this had to be our last game to see that."

WSU failed to produce a defensive stop, allowing Marshall to score off an in-bounds play with 34 seconds left, then squandered four opportunities to score in one possession .

After the game, Shamet was crestfallen when asked about Frankamp's performance.

"I'm so proud of him," Shamet said. "Sorry to him, I feel awful because I could have done more. I didn't do what I had to do to give him another day. He's a hell of a player and he showed that today. It's killing me right now because I wanted it so bad for them."

In the end, Frankamp made 59 percent of his shots. The other nine WSU players? 35 percent.

"Toward the end of the game, it did feel a little bit different to me," Frankamp said. "I felt like we played as hard as we could, we just had a couple of slip-ups and some really bad turnovers.

"We were just trying to survive and advance. That's what everybody always says. We just couldn't pull it out."

This story was originally published March 16, 2018 at 5:54 PM with the headline "Conner Frankamp on career-high in NCAA loss: "I would have rather scored zero"."