Three reasons why Wichita State will play for the Maui championship

Wichita State has had an undefeated regular season and a run to the Final Four under Gregg Marshall, but never have the Shockers won a marquee in-season tournament.

Wichita State will have a chance to do that in Wednesday’s Maui Invitational championship game after the No. 6 Shockers dispatched Marquette 80-66 in the semifinals on Tuesday at the Lahaina Civic Center.

Landry Shamet scored 19 points, including 10 points in the final four minutes to seal the game for the Shockers. Conner Frankamp (13 points), Shaquille Morris (11), and Austin Reaves (10) all scored in double-figures for Wichita State, while Marquette’s duo of Andrew Rowsey and Markus Howard combined for 51 points.

Here are three reasons why Wichita State will be playing for its first eight-team championship since 1963:

1. The play of Rashard Kelly

The senior has been so good off the bench in the first three games that coach Gregg Marshall rewarded him with his first start of the season against Marquette. Kelly delivered in a big way.

Kelly’s final stat line of 6 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, and 3 blocks still doesn’t adequately show the impact his play had on the floor. He does so many things that don’t show up on the box score — crucial block-outs, rotations, two charges taken on defense, and spacing and vision on offense.

But Kelly will certainly be in the spotlight after his most spectacular play from Tuesday when he chased down Marquette’s Sacar Anim on a breakaway and blocked his lay-up from behind, then blocked a second shot to single-handily dismantle the fastbreak.

Kelly’s third block of the game was also a momentum-changer, as Marquette had a chance to cut WSU’s lead to seven points with a lay-up. But Kelly swooped in from behind to swat it away.

Marshall has one of his deepest rosters to date and he can play with a lot of different starting lineups. It’s hard to argue Kelly doesn’t give Wichita State its best chance at a quick start when he’s in the starting lineup.

“There’s no difference to me,” Kelly said. “I just have to play and bring the same mindset I do every day and contribute and be that glue guy. We have great scorers on our team and we have great guys that can shoot the ball, I just have to find a different way to contribute.”

2. Attacking the basket and boarding out

For the second straight game in Maui, outside shots did not fall for the Shockers.

After making 6 of 25 three-pointers against California on Monday, Wichita State followed it up with a 6-for-19 performance against Marquette. But the Shockers didn’t let their outside shooting woes sink them.

Wichita State remained aggressive going to the basket, which led to 44 points in the paint and 25 of 38 makes for 66-percent accuracy on two-point shots.

“When we can score 80 points, I don’t think we lose very often,” Marshall said.

Many teams in college basketball can score 80 points. Not many can score 80 with the three-point shot accounting for just 20 percent of the scoring.

“We didn’t shoot it very well, but we try to crash the glass and get the ball inside and get to the foul line,” Marshall said. “I don’t know what it is, maybe we’re due for some outside shots to go in.”

Another important factor was that Wichita State rebounded close to 85 percent of Marquette’s misses, which is an extremely high number especially considering Marquette shot 33 three-pointers and long shots are notoriously difficult for defenses to rebound.

On the other end, the Shockers were a bit below their offensive rebounding mark at 34 percent but it was good enough to deliver a 42-25 rebounding advantage for Wichita State. Kelly finished with a team-high 10 rebounds, while Austin Reaves grabbed nine.

“The ideal situation for us is to force a tough, contested shot, then everybody checks out and the ball hits the floor and the guards can swoop in and get it,” Marshall said.

3. Limiting Marquette’s three-point percentage

There’s no way of stopping a team that takes half of its shots from beyond the arc from firing three-pointers, but Wichita State succeeded in limiting Marquette’s effectiveness from outside.

Marquette once again finished the game shooting more threes than twos, but the Shockers held it to just 27-percent shooting from the arc.

Marquette’s trio of snipers — Andrew Rousey, Markus Howard, and Sam Hauser — came in averaging more than eight makes a game. They finished shooting 8 of 26 on Tuesday for 31 percent.

“They don’t miss wide-open shots, so you can’t give them wide-open shots,” Marshall said. “You’ve got to have great communication if you’re going to be doing any type of switching on the ball screens. Zach Brown didn’t do his normal job early in the game, but I thought Austin Reaves and Rashard Kelly were really good defensively for us.”

The game finished at 70 possessions, the lowest of any game WSU has played so far this season.

Marquette entered with a 1.07 points per possessions, meaning its average suggested it would score 75 points. Holding the Golden Eagles to 66 was a mark of a good defense by WSU that clamped down and boarded out in the second half to prevail.

This story was originally published November 21, 2017 at 2:46 PM with the headline "Three reasons why Wichita State will play for the Maui championship."