WSU takeaways: WSU’s offense picks up with Torres hitting jumpers: ‘It’s about time’
The Wichita State men’s basketball team won its fifth straight game at Koch Arena on Wednesday in an 84-63 victory over Oral Roberts.
Senior Markis McDuffie scored 25 points on 10-of-10 shooting from the free throw line, Jaime Echenique scored a career-high (19 points) for the second straight game, and Ricky Torres dropped a career-high 13 points with six assists.
WSU improved to 7-4 with the victory, while Oral Roberts dropped to 4-10. The Shockers will conclude their non-conference slate on Saturday with their first true road trip of the season at VCU.
Here are five takeaways from WSU’s latest win:
1. Ricky Torres finally sees his jumpers start to fall. Torres, a junior college All-American last season, has found success in his game moving onto this level in every way but one: scoring. Through WSU’s first 10 games, Torres averaged 2.5 points on 32-percent shooting and 1-of-20 accuracy behind the arc.
On Wednesday, Torres easily topped his career-highs with 13 points on 6 of 9 shooting to go with six assists and one turnover in 31 minutes. Against Oral Roberts’ 2-3 zone, Torres split the top of the zone and made four pull-up jumpers at the free throw line and even drilled a three-pointer, just his second of the season.
“It’s about time,” a relieved Torres said. “This whole program between my teammates and the staff kept confidence in me and that kept me going. It’s about time, really.”
Torres had occasionally knocked down the mid-range jumper this season, but never with the frequency he did on Wednesday. He swished a pair of jumpers on back-to-back possessions early in the second half to lift WSU’s offense and his three gave WSU a 60-48 lead. He scored nine of his 13 points in the second half.
“Ricky had his best game as a Shocker,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “Love that elbow pull-up. You’ve got to be able to live there as a lead guard in college basketball.”
That’s a place where Torres says he feels comfortable.
“I’ve always loved the mid-range game,” Torres said. “When teams sit in a 2-3 zone, that’s where you want to get the ball. That was just what was open tonight, so that’s where we kept going.”
Marshall didn’t think it was a coincidence that Torres’ career-high in scoring coincided with WSU’s sudden return to an above-average offense. After posting seven straight halves of offense under one point per possession, dating back to the second half of the Baylor game, WSU finished Wednesday’s game scoring 1.15 points per possession against Oral Roberts.
“We’re brothers and we’ve been with each other since June,” McDuffie said. “We’ve seen the ups and the downs and we know everyone’s struggles and the adversity they’re going through. That was one thing he was trying to get over. That’s what he did (Wednesday). When he does, we’re going to take this to another level. I’m so happy for him and I knew this was coming.”
2. Shockers fare better against a zone defense. Much of the Shockers’ recent offensive struggles had come when defenses decided to zone them up. After watching WSU struggle to attack Southern Miss’ zone on Saturday, ORU employed a similar 2-3 zone on Wednesday.
That slowed the Shockers down somewhat in the game’s first 10 minutes, but they started to shred the zone in the second half and finished with the team’s fourth-most efficient offensive outing of the season.
“We didn’t do much different than Saturday,” Marshall said. “But when we able to get in there, we were smarter. We allowed the offense to set up and then all it takes is one successful ball screen with the offense we were running.”
Marshall compared it to running a triple option. Once the post buried one of the two top defenders in the zone in a screen, WSU’s ball handler could either pull up for an open jumper or if the other defender scraped in, kick it for an open three. If another defender rotated onto the wing, then the corner was left open and that is where McDuffie did a lot of his damage.
Torres also said the movement without the ball picked up this game.
“That was one of coach’s biggest emphasis all this week preparing for this team,” Torres said. “He wants us to move without the ball and always be doing something. As a team, we’re still learning what coach wants more. We keep getting better and better at it.”
After failing to sustain double-digit leads recently, it was also important for WSU to take a 10-point game midway through the second half and make it a 20-point game by the end of the game.
“We realized we’ve kind of been slower in the second half of these games,” Torres said. “That was an emphasis for us going into halftime. If we get a lead, we’ve got to keep it. There were times we get up on opponents and they’d fight back and it would be a game in the end. Coach Marshall tried to get us to understand we can’t let this be a game, we can’t give them any life.”
3. Jaime Echenique flashes his potential again. The 6-foot-11 junior center from Colombia has scored in double-digits for three straight games after Echenique finished with a career-high 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting against Oral Roberts.
It was the second straight game Echenique has scored a career-high after dropping 17 against Southern Miss. Echenique is averaging 10.3 points, 6.5 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game. And that’s only the start of what Marshall believes he is capable of.
“If he had a little more verve, vigor and vitality, and that’s something we’re working on, and played a little nasty and a little bit with an edge, Play Angry-type stuff, he’s a guy who could play at a very, very high level,” Marshall said. “His ceiling is the Association (NBA), but he’s not nearly there yet because he doesn’t have that yet. But when he does, wow, he’s really, really talented.”
Echenique is the team’s leading rebounder, despite playing less than 19 minutes per game. Echenique is sucking up 27 percent of available defensive rebounds when he’s on the court, a top-40 mark in the country.
4. Speaking of rebounding... Since posting the worst rebounding margin in the Marshall era against Oklahoma, WSU has been much better on the glass in its last three games. The Shockers outrebounded Jacksonville State by 11, Southern Miss by 17, and Oral Roberts by 10.
“I think the guys are doing a really good job of not thinking of the last mistake, just keep going to the next play,” Echenique said on WSU’s improved rebounding. “They’ve handled bad situations really good. We’re doing the small things that are really good, winning plays.”
After an uneven performance on the glass in the first five games of the season, WSU has returned closer to its past dominance rebounding in the last six games. The Shockers rank No. 53 in offensive rebounding percentage and No. 104 in limiting offensive rebounding percentage.
Saturday’s opponent, VCU, offers another opportunity for WSU to win the battle on the glass. The Rams rank No. 289 in the country in offensive rebounds allowed percentage.
“We’ve played a lot of teams so far that rebounding was our way to win the game,” McDuffie said. “That’s something we’ve obviously got to do every single game. Our biggest thing is rebounding. We’ve got a lot of height here. With our size, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be getting rebounds.”
5. Former WSU walk-on has success against the Shockers. Kaelen Malone certainly didn’t look or play like a walk-on against the Shockers. The former WSU walk-on, who transferred and is now on scholarship at Oral Roberts, finished with 12 points, five rebounds, seven turnovers and only one turnover in 37 minutes against his former team.
After playing his freshman season at a Texas community college and spending the last two seasons with WSU, Malone has carved out an important role for ORU (4-10) in his senior season.
“I’m happy for Kaelen Malone,” Marshall said. “He went to a great spot where he’s able to be a lead guard and he’s playing really well. There were no Division I schools clamoring to get his name on the dotted line out of high school. He’s just a really, really nice young man and he deserves this experience in college basketball. He played well and I’m happy for him.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2018 at 11:03 PM.
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