‘A good one for a great one’: How WSU’s unselfish play led to road win at SMU
The concept of upgrading good shots to great ones sounds simple, but the execution is anything but.
To start with, an offense has to be able to hunt down good looks. And if the first half of American Athletic Conference play for Wichita State proved anything, it’s that good looks cannot be taken for granted.
The ball sticks, players stand around, the dribbles start to greatly outnumber the passes and before you know it, 30 seconds have passed and your offense is left with a contested jump shot.
But the last five weeks, in which the Shockers have revived their season with seven wins in nine games, including Sunday’s 67-55 win at SMU, has seen improved ball movement, player movement and shooting from WSU’s offense. Finally, WSU is able to hunt for those great shots.
An example of this came halfway through the first half of WSU’s win at SMU, when Jaime Echenique chased down an offensive rebound and kicked out to Erik Stevenson, who could have easily stepped into a three-pointer. But there were two SMU defenders racing toward him to contest the would-be shot and Stevenson spotted Dexter Dennis in his peripheral vision standing open in the right corner.
Stevenson wasted no time whipping the ball to Dennis, who swished the wide-open look to extend WSU’s run to 9-0 and lead to 20-10 and force SMU coach Tim Jankovich to call timeout.
“That’s just the way I was always taught,” Stevenson said. “Pass up a good one for a great one. I could have shot it, but I wasn’t as open as he was.”
Ricky Torres made a similar play in a similar position later in the first half when Rod Brown tracked down an offensive rebound and kicked it out to him. Torres, who has struggled from the. three-point line this season, pretended to start shooting to suck in the defense, then kicked to Dennis on the wing for a wide-open three and Dennis again swished.
The number of assisted baskets has skyrocketed in the last two weeks for WSU. The first 12 AAC games saw the Shockers average 12.7 assists and assist on 51.4 percent of their made baskets. In their last four, WSU has averaged 18.5 assists and assisted on 68.5 percent of made baskets. During that four-game stretch, WSU point guard Jamarius Burton has a total of 29 assists (7.3 average).
On Sunday, neither WSU or SMU will be proud of their shooting in the second half. But WSU executed well in the first half to build a double-digit lead that it was able to protect in the second half. The Shockers shot 53.3 percent and finished with 11 assists on 16 baskets.
That means WSU was relying less on seniors Markis McDuffie and Samajae Haynes-Jones bailing the offense out with 1-on-1 play and more on the ball moving around the perimeter. That was crucial against SMU’s extended 2-3 zone.
“Ball movement will beat a zone if you move it with a purpose,” Torres said. “Me and Jamarius talk a lot about how we can beat the zone. We watch film a lot and we notice that good things happen when we move the ball well.”
Conquering a zone isn’t always just about the pass. Sometimes it matters how you set it up.
A player cannot simply stare down their intended target because the defenders in the zone are always trying to read the eyes of the ball handler. It creates a game-within-the-game, as WSU’s ball handlers are tasked in different ways to create angles and space for their intended pass.
Stevenson once again provided an example of this midway through the first half. After a timeout, WSU coach Gregg Marshall had dialed up a back-door alley-oop that Stevenson was to throw from the top of the zone to a cutting Dennis on the backside. But Stevenson couldn’t stare down the rim, where he was planning to throw the pass, because SMU’s middle defender could have sniffed out the play.
So Stevenson gave a glance to the right wing to make the defense relax, then pulled the trigger on the pass, perfectly lobbing it to the left-corner of the backboard and watching Dennis sky through the air for the slam dunk.
“They were in that extended zone and there were a lot of holes in it, you just had to find them,” said Stevenson, who dished out a career-high six assists. “You have to move the defense with your eyes, use ball fakes, pass fakes. It just felt like there were holes and we were able to make the right passes.”
Patience was required from WSU in the first half. It was true SMU’s zone was presenting shot opportunities around the perimeter, but WSU benefited when it worked the ball and made multiple passes.
Hence, upgrading good shots into great ones.
“There’s always shots that will open up early, but you have to remember that you can get those later in the clock,” Torres said. “You’ve got to have the discipline to be able to turn down good shots to get great ones.”
This isn’t to say WSU is suddenly playing beautiful basketball. After all, the Shockers shot less than 40 percent from the field and scored 0.99 points per possession, under their season average.
But as the season has progressed, WSU’s passing and shooting have improved. And in wins like Sunday’s over SMU, passing has played a central role.
“When we make a good pass, that just makes us want to play defense and get a stop even more so we can go down and do the same thing,” Stevenson said.
This story was originally published March 3, 2019 at 11:13 PM.
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