Shocker reserves get one last opportunity to deliver

Last year, Wichita State headed into the NCAA Tournament with a bench full of proven veterans.

When WSU coach Gregg Marshall turned to look at his reserves, he saw a pair of seniors who’d played in the Final Four the previous year – Chadrack Lufile and Nick Wiggins. He saw a reliable defensive presence and a third-year player, Evan Wessel. He saw a player with plenty of Division I experience, Kadeem Coleby, who transferred to WSU after playing a full season at Louisiana-Lafayette.

Even the newcomer, junior-college transfer Darius Carter, was a proven commodity by the time the Shockers reached St. Louis as the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Regional.

Marshall needed only to point, and experience was headed to the court.

The Shockers head into this NCAA Tournament this week a world away from the bench that helped defeat Cal Poly and lost a heartbreaker to eventual national runner-up Kentucky.

Seeded No. 7 in the Midwest Regional, WSU (28-4) takes on No. 10-seed Indiana (20-13) on Friday at around 1:45 p.m.

The starting five for the Shockers this season has been a constant — Ron Baker, Fred VanVleet, Tekele Cotton and Carter have started all 32 games, while Wessel has started 29.

The bench has been a different issue. Down the stretch, Marshall has gone with a four-man group of freshmen Zach Brown, Shaq Morris and Rashard Kelly, with junior-college transfer Bush Wamukota also getting into the mix.

Morris leads the group at 4.9 points. Kelly is tops on rebounds at 3.0. Morris is the only one who averages more than 10 minutes at 13.2.

What they lack in experience, however, the Shockers make up for in size. All four are forwards and Brown is the runt of the litter at 6-foot-6 and 213 pounds.

Morris and Kelly, who started three games when Wessel was out with an ankle injury, are both 6-7. Wamukota is 6-11. All three are over 230 pounds, with Morris the heaviest at 260.

“What stands out is how physical they are, and they’re very, very thick,” Indiana coach Tom Crean said of the Shockers. “It’s eye-popping when you watch them on the screen right now with how strong and physical they are ... I mean, they’re not a huge team but a very thick, well-built, well-conditioned, weight room-built team.

“The thing is you’re going to have to be ready for a fight on the glass. If you don’t come in with that kind of mindset, it’s not going to be a great game for you. You’ve got to earn your baskets against them because of that physicality.”

Indiana, which finished seventh in the Big Ten, doesn’t necessarily have an advantage when it comes to reserves.

The Hoosiers, who also go about nine deep, have a pair of freshman forwards they bring off the bench. Max Hoetzel is 6-8 and averages 2.4 points, 6-7 Emmit Holt averages 3.8 points, and 6-4 sophomore guard Stanford Robinson averages 2.9 points.

“It’s not a game where we’re going to be able to go in and get by with a lot of mistakes or get by with not rebounding the ball,” Crean said. “So we’re really going to be have to be on top of our game.”

Indiana’s biggest advantage off the bench is probably 6-4 junior guard Nick Zeisloft, who averages 6.8 points.

Zeisloft actually has experience playing against the Shockers, having played the last two seasons for Illinois State — he even hit a pair of three-pointers against the Shockers in the semifinals of the 2013 MVC Tournament.

Zeisloft was able to play for the Hoosiers right away after graduating from Illinois State in three years.

“We’ve got to win on making sure we play as mistake-free as possible and yet play to our strengths,” Crean said. “We’re not going to win on the experience game.”

This story was originally published March 15, 2015 at 10:58 PM with the headline "Shocker reserves get one last opportunity to deliver."