How Gregg Marshall is trying to improve WSU’s passing as Shockers prepare for Tulsa
It’s difficult to pinpoint the root of Wichita State’s offensive troubles this season because there are multiple causes.
The margin for error is so thin this season with so much inexperience that it doesn’t take much to expose the flaws of the Shockers. They aren’t stocked with consistent shooters, so the offense struggles when WSU isn’t able to manufacture open looks.
But WSU coach Gregg Marshall is most perturbed when WSU has the opportunity for an open look, but the ball handler doesn’t make the read quick enough or isn’t prepared to make the play.
That has been a focus for the Shockers (12-12, 5-7 American) as they head to Tulsa (16-10, 6-7) for a crucial road test at 8 p.m. Wednesday broadcast on ESPNU.
“We’re not a particularly good passing team,” Marshall said. “Guys are open and we don’t see them in a timely fashion and deliver the ball on target and on time. We hesitate, then by that point, the defense has now adjusted and it’s no longer open or we still think it’s open and we force it in and turn it over. We’ve got to be better about getting into gaps and creating help situations and make a pass out, as opposed to getting in too deep and having to shoot it.”
Marshall’s gut instinct that WSU is struggling with passing is backed up by numbers.
To compare this year’s team, with a freshman point guard and posting the worst shooting numbers of the Marshall era, to last year’s team, led by an NBA player in Landry Shamet on the best-shooting team in the Marshall era, would be unfair. But even compared to any other team under Marshall, these Shockers don’t stack up when it comes to assists.
Assists account for 51.9 percent of WSU’s made baskets this season, which is slightly below the national average but well below the average for a Marshall-coached team. That number is generally above 55 percent. It peaked at 63.7 percent (third in the nation) last season and the previous low was 53.2 percent posted in 2011-12.
So how does Marshall go about improving that?
“You have to show them on video where they missed open receivers, where they missed possible assists and possible easy baskets so they can see it,” Marshall said. “We’ve done that quite a bit all year. I don’t know sometimes if they’re not even looking into the post or at the cutting player that’s open. I don’t know if we’re doing a very good job of sealing or posting up or letting people know we want the ball when we cut or we’re open. I think it’s a combination of all of those things.”
It may seem minor, but Marshall has noticed on film that his ball handlers, who are mostly first-year players, have the tendency to drop the ball to below their waist. When a player flashes open or they need to make a split-second decision, it’s harder to execute when the player has to bring the ball up compared to if they held the ball high and could make the pass instantly.
But the fault doesn’t always rest on the ball handlers. Marshall sees serious room for improvement for WSU away from the ball. He wants to see more hard, physical sit-ins by WSU’s centers in the post and he wants to see better off-ball movement from shooters on the perimeter.
“Another problem we have is guys not understanding how to move with the dribble and create that passing lane or passing window to receive a pass,” Marshall said. “They just stand there and when the dribble comes, they don’t slide and stay in the vision of the passer. We’ve got to help these guys read the situation, deliver the pass on target and on time and then have the other guys creating that passing angle to get out of the same plain of the defender. It’s still a work in progress.”
During its four-game winning streak, WSU saw progress in its tenacity for winning loose balls and rebounds. It was never more evident in the second half of WSU’s 79-68 win over Tulsa at Koch Arena on Feb. 2, and the Shockers gave a similar effort in the second half of the Cincinnati loss when they outrebounded the Bearcats by 16.
WSU knows it can play that way and will have to in order to knock off Tulsa at the Reynolds Center, where it is 12-2 this season. Marshall just hopes this time it doesn’t take one of his fiery halftime speeches to draw that type of effort from the Shockers.
“I don’t know why it takes something at halftime to spur our team on,” Marshall said. “But it takes a little ranting and raving at halftime to get them to do that and that is just so unbelievable to me. But undoubtedly that was the key.”
Wichita State at Tulsa
Records: WSU 12-12, 5-7 AAC; TU 16-10, 6-7
When: 8:05 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Reynolds Center, Tulsa, Okla.
TV: ESPNU
Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM
About Wichita State: WSU holds a 68-61 lead in the all-time series and has won five straight and 11 of the last 12 meetings. The Shockers are 4-3 all-time at the Reynolds Center... WSU is 1-7 in road games this season with the lone win coming Feb. 6 at East Carolina. From 2013-18, the Shockers were the nation’s best road team with a 49-8 record... Freshman Dexter Dennis notched his first career double-double on Sunday with 14 points and a career-high 13 rebounds against Cincinnati. It was the first double-double by a WSU freshman in 11 years and the most rebounds by a freshman since 2001... Senior Markis McDuffie is now third in the conference in the scoring race with 18.7 points per game. He has topped 20 points 10 times, which is tied with 2014 All-American Cleanthony Early for the most in the Marshall era... Point guard Jamarius Burton has the most assists (64) by a true freshman since Fred VanVleet dished out 89 in the 2012-13 season. Burton is on track to finish with one of the five highest single-season totals by a true freshman in program history.
About Tulsa: Since losing to the Shockers on Feb. 2 in Wichita, Tulsa has rattled off three straight victories. Tulsa is a half-game ahead of WSU for seventh place in the conference standings... It took overtime, but Tulsa is coming off a 77-73 win over East Carolina on the road. Sterling Taplin hit a game-clinching three-pointer with 13 seconds left in overtime... DaQuan Jeffries leads the team in scoring (13.8 points) and rebounding (5.5), while Nebraska transfer Jeriah Horne (9.9 points) leads the AAC in scoring for players who have come off the bench every game... Taplin ranks sixth all-time at Tulsa in assists and needs just 13 more points to reach the 1,000-point plateau for his career... The Havoc in the Heartland rivalry series between the two schools is currently tied at 12 points apiece... During conference play, Tulsa has held opponents to 39.9 percent shooting and no team has made more than 50 percent of their shots against the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa also ranks first in conference play in three-point shooting at 37.9-percent accuracy.
This story was originally published February 19, 2019 at 4:38 PM with the headline "How Gregg Marshall is trying to improve WSU’s passing as Shockers prepare for Tulsa."
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