Here’s the dilemma WSU’s offense faces against defenses that gamble like Memphis
Make no mistake: Wichita State played well enough offensively to win what turned out to be an 88-85 loss to Memphis on Saturday at Koch Arena.
After all, WSU scored 85 points, made 45.7 percent of its shots, grabbed 11 offensive rebounds and hit 10 three-pointers on 38.5-percent accuracy. From an efficiency standpoint, it was an above-average performance with WSU’s offense pumping out 1.10 points per possession, a slight uptick from the season average of 1.06 points per possession.
But that doesn’t mean the Shockers aren’t facing dilemmas on the offensive end that need to be solved in the season’s final four regular-season games.
WSU lost to Memphis because it couldn’t find a way to slow down Jeremiah Martin (37 points) in the second half and committed an array of careless mistakes in the final four minutes. But the Tigers also exposed an issue for WSU’s offense that hadn’t popped up since the Connecticut loss that capped a 1-6 start in American Athletic Conference play.
The premise was simple: Memphis tried to do whatever it could to bait WSU’s two point guards, Jamarius Burton and Ricky Torres, into becoming scorers. Every team’s scouting report is to contain Markis McDuffie and Samajae Haynes-Jones and now freshman Dexter Dennis has become a priority with his hot shooting. Teams even will commit resources to stopping Jaime Echenique inside.
So Memphis viewed every possession where those players didn’t shoot a small victory. That meant the Tigers went under every screen for Burton and Torres, even those set inside the arc. That meant playing five feet off them, even if they were toeing the three-point line, daring them to shoot. That meant if they didn’t have the ball to treat them as a non-threat and set up with two feet in the paint to deny WSU’s posts touches and discourage drives from the perimeter.
Basically, Memphis was gambling that Burton and Torres couldn’t make enough shots to make its defense pay. To better help visualize this strategy, here’s a few video clips of the basic gamble Memphis was making in the game.
I wrote after WSU’s 80-60 loss at UConn on Jan. 26 that the Shockers’ offense had a gravity problem. That meant that no one other than McDuffie forced a defender to stay orbiting the perimeter. Since that game, WSU has won five of seven games and its offense has improved drastically, notably with the emergence of Dennis, who has 15 made three-pointers in his last three games.
Even if it’s not as glaring, WSU still has a gravity problem. Not every defense is willing to go to the extremes that Memphis (and UConn) did, but when they do, there’s no denying that Burton and Torres are not commanding any gravity.
It makes sense: Burton is 6 for 26 (23.1 percent) on three-pointers this season and Torres is 3 for 38 (7.9 percent). Defenses are willing to take its chances giving up wide-open threes to either shooter. In their view, that’s one less opportunity for McDuffie, Dennis or Echenique to hurt them.
But Burton and Torres don’t have to make three-pointers to make this type of defense pay. Both point guards found success at times against Memphis, using the space they were given to their advantage.
You can see in the first clip of the video when Memphis defender Tyler Harris tries to chest up Burton three feet past the three-point line, Penny Hardaway and Mike Miller both motion for him to follow the scouting report and play off. Harris immediately retreats, goes under a screen set at the free-throw line and allows Burton to take a wide-open jumper just inside the arc.
This kind of shot will be readily available to Burton and Torres. It’s basically there whenever they want it, so they have to be selective. It’s a shot they should take confidently because they will be able to dribble into the shot and release it in rhythm without a contest or, at best, a late contest. In the video, Burton and Torres both knock down identical jumpers when the defense decides to go under a screen set near the free-throw line.
Another solution for WSU is what Burton did in the third clip in the video. He found a way to use the space given to him to his advantage in the pick-and-roll. Since the defender played so far off, Burton was able to build enough steam to plow past him toward the rim and force the big defender to commit, which left an easy dump-off pass for the rolling WSU big for the basket.
Those are answers for when Burton and Torres have the ball. Where it hurts WSU the most, however, is when they’re on the court and they don’t have the ball. That’s when their defender comes completely off and mucks up potential driving lanes and post entry passes for the Shockers.
Take a look at the video below. In the first clip, WSU perfectly executed a set that should have ended with a Haynes-Jones assist to a wide-open Dennis for an easy basket. Dennis cuts in from the wing, McDuffie buries Dennis’ defender in a screen and the freshman streaks free toward the rim... only to find another defender sitting in the lane taking away the pass.
How? Because when Torres initiated the set for WSU at the top of the key, passed it to the wing and cut to the weak-side corner, his defender was not interested in following him to the corner and instead played free safety and helped take away the Dennis cut.
There are countless clips of when Burton or Torres made the initial pass in the offense and cut through and wound up in a corner. Instead of following them there, Memphis treated them as a non-scoring threat and had the defender come completely off.
If they wanted to take a three, the defense could live with the results from a duo that is shooting a combined 14.1 percent beyond the arc this season. And if they want to dribble in and pull-up? That’s fine too. Per Hoop-Math, Burton is 16 of 49 on two-point jumpers and Torres is 11 of 23.
Again, this is not a fatal flaw for the Shockers’ offense. They have proven they can score efficiently with either player on the floor. Burton and Torres have been brilliant at times orchestrating the offense, especially Burton (19 assists in last two games) as of late.
But the concern comes when these late-season games slow down, crunch time arrives and WSU absolutely has to find a way to score in close games. The Shockers will have to figure out a way to make defenses that gamble like Memphis did pay.
Will WSU continue to try to figure it out with one of them on the court to close games? There’s no denying Burton and Torres are the best ball-movers on the team, but can WSU overcome their zero gravity in crunch time? Or will Haynes-Jones take over the late-game offense with Stevenson and Dennis at the other guard spots, giving WSU its best shooting lineup on the floor?
Questions to ponder as the season draws to a close. UConn will likely force WSU to provide the answers again on Thursday night.
This story was originally published February 26, 2019 at 7:40 AM.
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