Here’s why South Florida might be the worst matchup for WSU basketball right now
Wichita State has an opportunity to make the Cincinnati loss a distant memory, but the Shockers will have to prove they can win a road game.
WSU will get two road tests this week, the first coming on Tuesday night, when the Shockers (8-9, 1-4 American Athletic Conference) travel to Tampa, Fla. for the first time in program history for a 7 p.m. game against South Florida (12-6, 2-4) broadcast on CBS Sports Network.
There will be no easy road games for a team as inexperienced as WSU, but this was thought to be one of the easier ones on the conference schedule. After all, USF has finished either second-to-last or last in all five seasons in the AAC.
But in his second season, coach Brian Gregory is starting to find traction. USF has already matched last season’s win total, thanks to a seven-game winning streak earlier this season, and the Bulls have won 10 of 12 games at the Yuengling Center, where they knocked off Connecticut to start conference play.
WSU coach Gregg Marshall quipped that Saturday’s 66-55 loss to Cincinnati, in which the Shockers shot 28 fewer free throws, the biggest disparity for the Shockers at home in 19 years, already gave his team preparation for road tests this week at South Florida and Connecticut.
“We need (to win on the road),” Marshall said. “I felt like the road team (Saturday), so it won’t be any different going down to South Florida. I don’t think it can be much worse, I’ll have to see.”
It might actually be worse.
South Florida is statistically the worst team the Shockers could play right now when they’re working on limiting their fouls. The Bulls own the No. 1 free-throw rate in the country, as they are shooting an average of 29 free throws per game courtesy of an average of nearly 24 fouls per game by their opponents.
In USF’s last game, against Houston, the two teams combined for 62 fouls and 76 free throws. It will take maturity and focus for a WSU team committing an average of nearly 23 fouls per game in AAC play to prevent USF from doing what it does best.
“We have to buckle down and play two halves together,” WSU senior Samajae Haynes-Jones said. “I feel like we always start out good, then we end up getting in a slump the second half. We have to put two halves together.”
After being college basketball’s best road team since the turn of the century, this is the longest WSU has gone without a road win to start a season since 2008-09. That team was 1-10 on the road, only winning on Feb. 4, 2009 over Indiana State. The Shockers are 0-4 this season.
Haynes-Jones touched on one of WSU’s biggest bugaboos: second halves. WSU was competitive with Oklahoma and VCU through the first 20 minutes before bowing out to double-digit losses, then led Houston at the break before losing by nine.
In those three games, WSU’s defense has allowed 1.22 points per possession in the second half compared to 1.03 points per possession in the first half.
“We have to do what we’ve been doing these past two games in terms of defense and toughness, playing harder and smarter,” WSU senior Markis McDuffie said. “If we didn’t have them second-half slumps, our record would be a lot better. Them second-half slumps always get us. We need to go out this road game and show some heat.”
Wing David Collins leads USF in scoring at 14.8 points, while point guard Laquincy Rideau (14.3 points, 3.6 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 3.2 steals) is USF’s do-everything player and even logged a triple-double with points, assists and steals this season. Freshman big man Alexis Yetna has been a pleasant surprise, averaging 12.7 points and 10.2 rebounds.
WSU will need an effort similar to the one it gave against Central Florida to pull off the win. In the last three games, only one player outside of the seniors has scored in double-digits. WSU will need a third scorer to step up in order to notch its first road win of the season.
After a brutal five-game stretch to open up conference play, the schedule eases up for WSU. The Shockers’ next six games are all against teams currently with a non-winning record in AAC play.
“I really see a lot of improvement in this team,” McDuffie said. “I believe we can go on a winning streak and do something special. We’re really promising right now. We’re definitely better than we were two weeks ago. We’ve just got to get more people to put the ball in the hoop and contribute. As long as we’re playing defense, I think the shots are going to start to fall.”
Wichita State at South Florida
Records: WSU 8-9, 1-4 AAC; USF 12-6, 2-4
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Yuengling Center (10,4111), Tampa, Fla.
TV: CBS Sports Network (643 on UVerse, 260 on Cox, 221 on DirecTV, 158 on DISH)
Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM
About Wichita State: This is the first trip to play in Tampa in program history. WSU won the first meeting between the two programs last season in Wichita. This will be the only meeting this season because of the league’s unbalanced schedule... WSU junior point guard Ricky Torres hails from just across the bay in Pinellas Park, Fla... WSU senior Markis McDuffie is the AAC’s second-leading scorer at 19.6 points. He’s scored at least 20 points in four straight games, tied for the longest streak in the Gregg Marshall era. He’s reached double-figures in the last 16 games, the second-longest streak under Marshall. McDuffie needs just 24 more points to move into the top-25 on WSU’s all-time scoring list... From the 2010-11 season to 2017-18, WSU was the nation’s best road team at 75-20. The Shockers are 0-4 in road tests this season.
About South Florida: The Bulls have taken off in the second year under Brian Gregory. They’re already looking for their 13th win of the season, which would be the most since the 2011-12 campaign... USF’s six losses have come by an average of 4.7 points with four of the six losses coming by a single possession... USF is the only school in the NCAA to have a conference leader in rebounds (Alexis Yetna), assists (Laquincy Rideau) and steals (Rideau)... Yetna, a redshirt freshman, has more double-doubles (9) than 10 teams in the American... Rideau ranks second in the country in steals per game at 3.2. He’s only 11 steals shy of setting USF’s single-season record... Yetna ranks 14th nationally with his 10.2 rebounds per game... USF has taken the most free throws attempts in the NCAA with 29.3 per game... USF senior center Nikola Scekic was a teammate of WSU’s Samajae Haynes-Jones at Hutchinson Community College and won a national championship together in 2017.... USF leads the conference in rebounding margin.
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