What’s wrong with WSU’s offense? Here’s what film shows is slowing the Shockers down
The Wichita State men’s basketball team may be 2-0, but it isn’t because of its shooting.
Through two games, both against outmatched opponents, here are some shooting statistics the Shockers have compiled:
- WSU is shooting 30.7% on field goals, the seventh-worst mark in the country.
- WSU is shooting 31.1% on two-point field goals, the sixth-worst mark in the country.
- WSU is making 40.0% on shots at the rim, the sixth-worst mark in the country, per Hoop-Math.com.
- WSU has scored 54 combined first-half points on 75 possessions for an abysmal 0.72 points per possession to start games.
“It’s painful, it’s tough when you can’t put the ball in the basket,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said after WSU’s 69-63 win over Texas Southern last Saturday. “That’s the objective of the game. Boy, we had some bad shots. We had some shots we should have made. We had some poor execution that took us out of shots.”
It’s important to remember it will take time for this WSU team, which has more playing experience than last season but is actually younger. Per KenPom.com, WSU (without senior Jaime Echenique) is the third-youngest team in the country. Uneven offense is to be expected in early November with a team relying on first- and second-year players.
“They have to understand by watching and learning that it is a little more difficult now than it’s ever been for them,” Marshall said. “Now they’re playing Division I college basketball and it’s hard.
“You have to be smarter because the players you’re playing against are better, they’re bigger, faster, quicker, more explosive. It’s going to be harder for you to score than the ways you’ve been able to score in the past. Now you have to be smarter and execute something. Five guys can be better than one running an offense that pulls for one another and doesn’t care who gets the shot, as long as we get a great shot as a group.”
Understanding the attention to detail and applying those details to the offense appears to be the culprit to WSU’s slow start on offense.
In its motion offense, WSU finds success when its shooters set effective back screens for wing players. This forces the shooter’s defender to stay in the lane to play help defense, while the shooter comes off another screen at the top of the key. Usually the defender is late and WSU produces an open three-pointer, but that’s reliant on good screens and good passes.
There were plenty of examples on Saturday when WSU could have had an open shot, except for a poor screen or a pass (or sometimes both).
Even more troubling is WSU’s utter lack of urgency to start Saturday’s game. Maybe WSU’s players thought Texas Southern would be an easy game after the Wildcats were trounced by 35 points in their opener at San Diego State or maybe they just weren’t as energized for a Saturday afternoon tip time. Regardless of the reason, WSU’s offense did not make many crisp passes, screens or cuts to begin the game.
Take WSU’s third possession of the game as an example. The Shockers screened once and made one pass in the first 15 seconds. Grant Sherfield had the ball on the wing and made a freshman mistake of not zipping the pass up top to Dexter Dennis. Instead, his pass was intercepted by Texas Southern for an easy lay-in — known as an atomic bomb in Marshall vernacular.
It was a miserable possession featuring zero crisp passes, zero effective screens, zero meaningful cuts and the ball never penetrating the three-point arc. There were too many instances like that scattered throughout Saturday’s game, an easy fix for WSU by simply upping the effort to eliminate the low-energy possessions that inevitably stall out.
“I honestly really don’t even know,” Dennis said. “The first half, I don’t think it could have got any worse. Everyone looked kind of out of it, to be honest.”
But Texas Southern deserves a lot of the credit for mucking up WSU’s half-court offense.
For starters, Texas Southern special assistant Randy Peele worked under Marshall at Winthrop for five seasons and is familiar with the actions of Marshall’s offenses. Well-versed in that knowledge, Texas Southern knew the shortcuts it could take on the defensive end.
Texas Southern was genuinely impressive with its hair-on-fire brand of defense. If WSU found dribble penetration, Texas Southern would swarm the ball. If the Shockers had proper spacing and quick-thinking passing, they could have crumbled the defense. More times than not, they did not.
“They exposed some things we needed to get better at,” Marshall said.
One thing WSU can improve in is when it creates a numbers advantage with a drive toward the basket. The Shockers created several of these situations — “opportunity” basketball, as Marshall calls it — but failed to make Texas Southern pay.
Whether it was not being patient enough in the pick-and-roll or missing an open cut to the basket or open kick-out to the perimeter, WSU’s decision-making in these situations was a little rusty against Texas Southern. It also didn’t help WSU shot 31.4% (11 of 35) on shots within five feet of the basket on Saturday.
Last season WSU shot 53% on shots within five feet and 58.9% on shots at the rim, so those percentages should improve with time. The Shockers are getting relatively clean looks but just shooting low percentages, as Synergy has WSU shooting 31.8% on open catch-and-shoot jumpers this season.
Right now the Shockers are following the formula from last season (great defense, rebounding and ball-handling) to victories. On Saturday, they won while shooting 24.2% — the lowest field-goal percentage for a Division I team in a win in the last five years.
Marshall has said repeatedly that this WSU team is much improved at shooting compared to last season. The Shockers will have to start proving it or else they’ll be playing with fire as the schedule begins to strengthen.
“I think our guys found out if they don’t play well, then you’re leaving it up to chance whether Texas Southern knocks down a few more shots or Texas Southern gets a few more whistles,” Marshall said. “If the ball bounces their way a couple more times, they win the game.”
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