‘Bigger, badder’ West Virginia muscles its way to Cancun championship over Shockers
For the first time this season, Wichita State was not the aggressor on the court.
The Shockers were out-classed by West Virginia, which was the bigger, tougher and more aggressive team and led from start to finish in a 75-63 victory in the Cancun Challenge championship game on Wednesday night at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya.
On one end of the court, West Virginia gashed WSU for 17 offensive rebounds. On the other end, the Mountaineers’ suffocating defense had the Shockers all out of sorts and held WSU to 30.6% shooting (19 of 62) from the field and 24% (6 of 25) on three-pointers.
“They were bigger and they were badder,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said in his postgame radio interview. “Tonight they were definitely badder and tonight they were definitely better. We’re going to have to figure it out and get better. This was a very good team and we played a little bit too much hero ball against them.”
Marshall acknowledged that West Virginia is likely the first NCAA Tournament team the young Shockers have faced this season. After this one, they’ll have plenty on film to watch in the next eight days before their next game.
Even with WSU playing two centers together for the majority of the game, West Virginia crushed the Shockers on the glass for a 48-31 rebounding advantage, including rebounding 46% of its own misses. WSU hasn’t been outworked like that on the boards since Connecticut outrebounded WSU by 15 in a 20-point road loss last season.
No one on WSU had an answer for WVU’s freshman sensation Oscar Tshiebwe, a 6-foot-9 monster who was voted preseason Big 12 freshman of the year and showed why on Wednesday. Tshiebwe scored a team-high 19 points to go along with a career-high 18 rebounds, including six on the offensive glass.
“Wow,” Marshall said on radio when Tshiebwe’s performance came up. “Oh my, he is a pro.”
WVU held a significant size advantage by playing two big bodies in Tshiebwe (6-9, 260) and Derek Culver (6-10, 255) in its frontcourt. WSU has been getting by with a small-ball power forward in Trey Wade (6-6, 220), but he was out-matched on Wednesday. Tshiebwe and Culver combined for 27 rebounds, including nine offensive.
“I think those are two of the premiere rebounders certainly in our league and probably in the country,” West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said in his radio interview.
Even with all of the poor shooting and offensive rebounds allowed, the fact remains that Wichita State had a chance at the end of the game. After a a basket from Stevenson, who finished with a game-high 22 points, the Shockers were somehow within 57-51 of West Virginia with five minutes still remaining.
But WSU could never string together enough defensive stops in a row when it needed them. After Stevenson’s basket, West Virginia immediately answered with a Chase Harler three-pointer. A minute later, WSU was back again within six, 60-54, but again gave up a three-pointer at the other end. This time, the Shockers couldn’t muster another rally after West Virginia took the 63-54 lead with 3:46 remaining.
When scanning the box score, Marshall pointed out that minus Stevenson (8 for 18 shooting), the other 10 Shockers combined for just 11 of 44 shooting. WSU matched its season-low with six assists.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to get others shots and execute better, instead of trying to do it ourselves against that quality of individual athleticism, size, talent and coaching,” Marshall said on radio.
The other two sophomore scorers, Dexter Dennis and Jamarius Burton, combined for 1 of 12 shooting with four rebounds, one assist and four turnovers combined.
After scoring 36 points in WSU’s first two games, Dennis is in a five-game slump since. He’s averaging just 4.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 0.8 assists with no steals in the last five games. During that stretch, Dennis is shooting 24.3% from the field and just 3 of 24 on three-pointers.
“We’ve got to get better production from those guys,” Marshall said on radio. “I don’t know what it is, but we’ll try to coach them up and get them out of their funk.”
WSU was within striking distance early in the second half, but a five-minute cold stretch where it came up empty on nine straight possessions (featuring seven straight misses) allowed West Virginia to establish a 48-36 lead. More troubling, WSU capped off that stretch with a careless turnover and then failed to hustle back in transition and gave up an easy dunk for West Virginia.
Neither team could establish much of an offensive rhythm in the first half, as the two teams combined to shoot 33% from the field. Even though West Virginia outrebounded WSU by 12, it failed to fully capitalized due to 4 of 11 shooting from the foul line and eight turnovers.
One day after making South Carolina pay for its over-aggressive defense, the Shockers looked uncomfortable the entire game against a similar style of defense employed by West Virginia. The Mountaineers contested every pass on the perimeter, pushed WSU’s offense further away from the basket than preferred and generally did not allow the Shockers to move or pass where they wanted.
“We’re still very young, but we don’t want to put that as an excuse,” said senior Jaime Echenique, who notched his first double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 rebounds. “Last year we learned and matured. This year we want to step up. This is a minor setback and we want to keep going. I know my team and I believe so much in my team and we’re going to play harder and tougher and we’re going to learn from this experience.”
West Virginia put WSU in its largest deficit of the season, 27-19, but the Shockers showed some resiliency as Tyson Etienne (12 points) scored on an athletic finish and then Stevenson drilled a three-pointer to trim WVU’s lead to 29-28 in the final minute.
But in a preview of what was to come, West Virginia scored on a offensive rebound put-back on the final possession and took a 31-28 lead into halftime.
The loss snapped a 10-game regular-season winning streak by the Shockers and it was their first in their two appearances in the Cancun Challenge (7-1 including on-campus games).
This story was originally published November 27, 2019 at 9:53 PM.
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