WSU sends its two seniors out on top as Shockers win eighth game in last 10
After carrying one of the nation’s most inexperienced teams for so much of the season, the two Wichita State seniors were able to take a backseat on their senior night on Tuesday in a 72-55 victory over East Carolina at Koch Arena.
Earlier this season WSU most certainly would have lost if Markis McDuffie and Samajae Haynes-Jones, its two leading scorers, would have combined for 6 for 22 shooting like they did on Tuesday.
But the Shockers (16-13) aren’t the same team they were a month ago. They are now one of the hottest teams in the American Athletic Conference having won eight of their last 10 and posting a winning conference record (9-8) for the first time this season. WSU is the first team in the AAC’s brief history to win more than seven conference games after a 1-6 start.
They played far from their best offensive game, once again shooting sub-40 percent (39.1 to be exact), but WSU won another ugly game by holding its opponent to 35.6 percent shooting.
Now the Shockers aren’t so reliant on the seniors to power the offense. McDuffie led the team with 16 points, but sophomore Asbjorn Midtgaard scored a career-high 11 points, Dexter Dennis added 10, Jamarius Burton scored eight and Jaime Echenique added seven.
While it wasn’t the best game for either of the seniors, that didn’t stop the Koch Arena crowd from showering them with applause after the game. McDuffie has pieced together one of the best offensive careers in WSU history, while Haynes-Jones has made an impact his senior season with two game-winning shots.
As for the game, the Shockers led by double-digits for the final 24 minutes, 38 seconds. ECU closed to within 36-25 early in the second half, but WSU reeled off a 6-0 run with layups from Jamarius Burton and Rod Brown and a thunderous dunk from Asbjorn Midtgaard to extend the lead to 42-25.
Once WSU established its double-digit lead, it struggled to stretch it out with superb play on both ends. For example, WSU scored 11 points in six possessions and its 15-point lead was actually trimmed to 13 because its defense failed to get a stop.
But East Carolina couldn’t make enough shots to piece together a serious run. WSU’s steady stream of offense was enough to sustain the lead and then freshman Erik Stevenson splashed in a three for a 67-49 lead with 4:08 remaining.
The victory clinched at least a share of sixth place in the AAC standings and kept the Shockers alive to potentially tie Memphis for fifth place if it loses its finale against Tulsa and WSU wins at Tulane. But Memphis would hold the tiebreaker for the conference tournament’s No. 5 seed. WSU can clinch the No. 6 seed with a win at Tulane or if South Florida loses either of its final two games.
WSU didn’t channel the senior night energy inside the building in the opening minutes. The Shockers missed their first four shots and fell behind 4-0. WSU would miss six of its first seven shots before back-to-back threes from Dexter Dennis and McDuffie kick-started a 14-3 run for the Shockers.
The rally featured a Midtgaard offensive rebound put-back, a Ricky Torres short jumper, and was punctuated by a monstrous fast-break dunk by Dennis on a throw-back from Stevenson after a steal for an 18-9 lead with 10:14 remaining.
For one of the most foul-prone teams in the American, it was a pleasant surprise the Shockers reached bonus free throws within the game’s first eight minutes. That led to WSU shooting 15 more free throws (17-2) than ECU and outscoring the Pirates 11-2 at the foul line in the first half.
The free-throw advantage salvaged WSU’s offensive performance in the first half because the Shockers shot just 33.3 percent from the field and missed 12 of 15 three-pointers. WSU still scored an acceptable 1.00 points per possession though because of 11 free throws and nine offensive rebounds, as it took a 34-22 lead into halftime.
WSU reeled off an 8-0 run late in the second half, spurred on by freshman Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler, who came off the bench after Midtgaard went down with an ankle injury and with Echenique in foul trouble. In his first 30 seconds, Poor Bear-Chandler snatched a rebound, then hit a mid-range jumper. After a Haynes-Jones triple, Poor Bear-Chandler scored again on a spinning post move for a 32-18 lead.
While WSU probably felt like it underachieved on offense, it had a double-digit lead because of a defense that held ECU to 28.1 percent shooting and forced six turnovers.
This story was originally published March 5, 2019 at 10:19 PM.
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