‘We had our chances.’ WSU takeaways from its narrow loss to Davidson
Wichita State’s offense reverted back to its icy cold season-opening performance against Louisiana Tech, but Thursday’s 57-53 loss to Davidson in the first round of the Charleston Classic hurt more because the Shockers did other things very well.
WSU outrebounded Davidson by nine, 44-35, held the Wildcats’ NBA prospect, Kellan Grady, to two points on 1-of-11 shooting, and limited Davidson’s offense to 0.83 points per possession.
But the Shockers scored on just nine of 35 second-half possessions and shot 20 percent from the field, and Jon Axel Gudmundsson (career-high 33 points) took over down the stretch to rally Davidson to a victory.
Here are five takeaways on the Shockers:
1. ‘The best man-to-man defense we’ve played’
It started with the game plan prepared by WSU assistant Lou Gudino, a craft he is known for in the coaching ranks.
Gudino’s report detailed the many cuts, backcuts and handoffs Davidson’s offense uses to hum along at one of the most efficient paces in college basketball. On Thursday, WSU defended those array of moves about as well any defense could hope to.
“Their break on the ball was superb,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop said. “That’s a football term, but those guys have sensational breaks on the ball. Many of our cuts, which are pretty crisp, were destroyed because they made our catches further out so we couldn’t throw those passes to the cutters.”
Another key element of Gudino’s game plan was anchoring WSU’s center, either Jaime Echenique or Morris Udeze, at the free-throw line and not having them guard Davidson’s center when he caught the ball up top. That clogged the area where Davidson does much of its work and forced it to look elsewhere.
“I don’t know too many teams will hold them to 57,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “I’m not a betting man, but if you wanted to bet, I would bet you five times they’re not held to less than 57 points. We did a good job. They have so many good actions they run and Kellan Grady is a guy who will probably play in the NBA and he had one basket on the night.
“That was the best man-to-man defense we have played by far.”
Much of that credit goes to freshman Dexter Dennis, who was matched up with Grady for the majority of the first half, tailing Grady wherever he went on the court and making the star work for every inch on the court. Grady was 1 of 7 from the field in the first half and finished 1 for 11 in the game.
“When you play Wichita State, you know you’re getting into a war,” McKillop said. “That was about as hard-fought of a game as we’ve had at Davidson in many years.”
Take out Gudmundsson’s 33-point and 9-of-14 performance and the rest of Davidson’s offense combined to score 24 points on 10 of 38 shooting (26.3 percent).
2. ‘We’ve just got to make a couple more shots’
Even with its rocky offense, WSU was in control of this game, up 50-47, entering the final three minutes.
But when Gundmudsson stepped up and made the game’s two most important plays (a three-point play to tie the score with 2:34 remaining, then the go-ahead three with 53 seconds left), WSU’s offense couldn’t respond.
In the four crucial possessions that followed, WSU came up empty all four times. Markis McDuffie missed a twisting layup, Samajae Haynes-Jones committed a turnover, Erik Stevenson missed a three, and Jaime Echenique missed a short jumper.
“We had our chances,” Marshall said. “We hustled, we outrebounded them, we competed with such a young group out there at times. We’ve just got to make a couple more shots.”
Marshall said he will have to go back and examine the closing minutes of the game to determine if any adjustments need to be made.
“I’ve got to figure out if we’re not getting good shots and what I can do to help them get better shots or if they’re taking really good shots that we’re just missing. There were a couple of times we should have dumped it off instead of shooting and a couple of times we had good looks, we just have to knock it down.”
3. ‘I have to coach substitutions with this group’
WSU’s extreme youth has presented Marshall and his coaching staff with a new set of challenges this season. Some of them still surprise Marshall, like on Thursday when WSU had only had four players on the court after a timeout.
“I have to coach substitutions with this group,” Marshall said. “It’s amazing how much coaching we’re doing. But I love it because they’re very coachable and they’re a great group of guys. But I’ve got my work cut out for me. I’ve got to try to find the positives and it’s a tough and bitter pill to swallow to lose a game you led for a great portion of the game. It doesn’t matter. What’s the score at the end?”
Another thing that irritated Marshall was the tendency of his freshman guards to chase steals on outlet passes instead of sprinting back to play halfcourt defense. A gamble by Stevenson came to mind for Marshall in his postgame press conference and he pointed out that his lunge for a steal played a role in Davidson scoring a layup on the other end.
“One thing we keep telling our young guards is don’t mess around with the rebounder,” Marshall said. “Erik ran over and tried to take the ball from him. You couldn’t do that in high school, much less now. So sprint back. That’s the hard thing: put your head down and sprint back. The easy thing to do is take the defensive transition possession off and peek around. We have a problem with that, which means we have to do more coaching.”
Another rarity was the fact that Marshall had used all of his timeouts by the end of the game, something he joked about afterward.
“I used more timeouts than I did the last three or four seasons there tonight,” Marshall quipped.
4. ‘Now my challenge is to win the consolation bracket’
Marshall was upbeat following the loss, encouraged by his team’s effort rebounding and playing defense and not so much focused on the crushing loss to Davidson.
All of WSU’s newcomers now get the experience of playing an opponent on a short break without much time to implement a game plan.
“We don’t have much time, but we’ll do the best we can with the short turnaround,” Marshall said. “We got a little tired perhaps, so I’ve got to be conscious of that too.
“Now my challenge is to try to win the consolation bracket.”
WSU will play Appalachian State (1-2) in the consolation semifinals at 3:30 p.m. Friday and then play either Alabama or Ball State on Sunday.
After using all 12 players in the season-opener against Louisiana Tech, Marshall has cut his rotation in the past two games to eight players. Marshall hinted players like Asbjorn Midtgaard, Rod Brown, Chance Moore and Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler might see more playing time on Friday to try to combat fatigue.
5. A Charleston homecoming
It was the first time Marshall had been back at the College of Charleston since he was an assistant there under coach John Kresse more than 20 years ago.
This week has brought back many positive memories for Marshall and his family, but Marshall pointed out it’s not a family vacation — WSU is trying to win.
“It’s great to be in Charleston, who doesn’t enjoy Charleston?” Marshall said. “Even though you guys have crappy weather right now. This is the coldest I’ve ever felt Charleston. It’s a wonderful city and it’s great to see so many friends and family that are around, but bottom line is we lost the game. All of that stuff will be cool on Saturday, on our off-day, but we lost today.”
This story was originally published November 15, 2018 at 10:40 PM.