How Grant Sherfield played his best basketball to help Wichita State take down OU
The Wichita State men’s basketball team nearly cracked the AP Top 25 on Monday following its 80-75 victory over Oklahoma at Intrust Bank Arena.
It was the second straight win over a Big 12 opponent for the Shockers (9-1), who strengthened their bid to put together an NCAA Tournament-worthy resume in the nonconference season. The NCAA released its first NET rankings Monday, which had WSU ranked No. 14 in the metric the selection committee uses to seed the field in March.
Erik Stevenson, who was chosen AAC player of the week after scoring 16 points in the win over OU, did the heavy lifting early, but the Shockers don’t win the game without freshman point guard Grant Sherfield. The Wichita native scored 12 of his 14 points in the final eight minutes of the game and connected on all six of his free throws in the final 70 seconds.
“He played his best basketball he’s played,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “I don’t care about Central Arkansas or the other game he led us in scoring. (Saturday) was by far his best game because he shined in a huge moment.”
After his late-game heroics, it’s hard to remember that Sherfield was actually mostly silent in the first 30 minutes. He has excelled this season in pick-and-roll situations, but OU’s defense had done an superb job on corralling the freshman and limiting WSU’s offense in those situations.
WSU’s pick-and-roll game struggled early because the WSU big man choose to slip toward the basket rather than seal the defense with a screen. That allowed OU’s big man to jump out and force Sherfield to dribble backward. By the time Sherfield had dribbled around the defense, OU had made its rotations and recovered.
WSU was in serious trouble midway through the second half, trailing OU 56-48 with 11 minutes remaining. That’s when Sherfield scored or assisted on eights points during a game-changing 12-0 run.
“Coach was telling me as a point guard we’ve got to get to the paint and try to touch paint on every possession to try to create something,” Sherfield said. “So I just tried to touch paint every time and create for my teammates and if that’s not open, then finish the shot.”
With paint touches in mind, Sherfield ignited the run with two dump-off passes to WSU center Jaime Echenique rolling to the basket for easy scores. Both times, Sherfield took advantage of OU big Brady Manek. The first time, Echenique slipped the screen, Manek jumped out too early, and Sherfield found Echenique for the open layup. The next time down, Manek was late on his duties, which allowed Sherfield open entry to the paint and he found Echenique once again.
Once it was clear that Sherfield had solved that defensive coverage, OU coach Lon Kruger tried to throw the freshman for a loop by changing his team’s defensive philosophy out of a timeout. Instead of Manek rushing out to the perimeter to halt Sherfield’s progress, Manek stayed back in the paint with OU counting on Sherfield’s defender to be able to fight through or over the screen by Echenique. Basically, OU was daring Sherfield to beat them with his shot.
Sherfield was up for that challenge, too. After OU switched, Sherfield took advantage by turning the corner on the ball screen set by Echenique, which gave him time and space to pick his shot. He started with an acrobatic finish inside over OU’s Austin Reaves, then he followed with a ridiculous one-handed push shot from the free-throw line and capped off three straight scores by him with a tear-drop floater in the lane that put WSU up 64-58 with 5:39 remaining.
“You want to try to play your best against the best opponents that you play,” Sherfield added. “I was happy I was able to do that (Saturday). I was just happy I was able to control pace and find others and also create for myself.”
What likely went unnoticed during Sherfield’s scoring spree was his on-point help defense down the stretch.
OU went to a Reaves and Kristian Doolittle pick-and-roll game to generate offense down the stretch. That left Sherfield guarding OU freshman De’Vion Harmon spotting up in the corner. Even though Sherfield never guarded the ball in the closing minutes, he was still crucial to WSU’s team defense.
Sherfield played exceptional help defense, placing himself in proper position near the edge of the lane to take away OU’s driving lanes. There were multiple times he stunted at a driver and forced the OU ball handler to pick up his dribble or not even attempt the drive at all.
“If you notice, he was defending well too,” Marshall said of Sherfield. “It wasn’t just his offense. It was his defense, too. He was getting deflections, jamming it up on the weak side when he was on a non-shooter. His performance (Saturday) was a catalyst for the big win.”
Sherfield has scored more points and finished with more assists, but he’s never made a bigger impact than he did in helping WSU take down the Sooners.
“Our character coach (Steve) Dickey talked to us before the game about how there are small days and there are big days,” Marshall said. “Our guys elected to make this ia big day and an important day.”
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