‘We could beat anybody’: Wichita State basketball moves back into national spotlight
Before Thursday, this current group of Shockers hadn’t experienced the peak version of Koch Arena, the thrill of pulling out a victory over a top 25 team, the pressure of being in the national spotlight.
All of that changed Thursday when No. 23 Wichita State controlled No. 21 Memphis from start to finish in a 76-67 victory at a blacked-out Roundhouse.
After spending much of this season in relative anonymity, WSU (14-1) is back in the national spotlight following yet another impressive victory and this time in front of a national television audience. It’s a place where coach Gregg Marshall is used to, but one this new crop of players will have to get used to.
“National recognition is cool and all, but we feel like we’ve been slept on for a while now,” WSU sophomore Erik Stevenson said. “We feel like we could beat anybody in the country, home or on the road. It doesn’t matter where we’re at, we feel like we can play with anybody.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t jump a whole lot in the rankings, but keep us as an underdog. We’ll prove a lot of people wrong.”
WSU entered this season with modest expectations. An improvement over last season’s 22-15 campaign for sure, but a 14-1 start and top 25 ranking in mid-January? The Shockers have certainly proved almost everyone wrong so far this season.
And they delivered a clutch performance under the most pressure, as the WSU-Memphis showdown was just the sixth showdown between top 25 teams in the Roundhouse’s 65-year-old history and in front of a blackout crowd for the first time in seven years.
The good thing about winning games like that is that they create new ones down the road. As long as WSU continues to win, the stakes become higher and every game becomes that much more important.
It’s the reason why so many of these players came to WSU in the first place — to play in (and win) games like Thursday.
“We want these big games, these big stages,” WSU freshman Tyson Etienne said. “You saw the win. We did it together. We won that game together and that’s symbolic of our team and symbolic of what Shocker Nation is all about. We’ll continue it. It’s a good win, but it’s just two games into the conference. We still have a whole season.”
“That’s probably the loudest game I’ve been a part of,” Stevenson added. “The magnitude of this game, the meaning, you could tell it was definitely there. The fans knew it. They brought it for us tonight and we really appreciate it.”
Like the successful WSU teams that came before, these Shockers are piling up the impressive performances. After claiming its first top 25 win of the season in dominant fashion, WSU has built a resume that includes wins over South Carolina, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, VCU, Mississippi and now Memphis.
Unlike those teams before them, this WSU group has no superstar player. There is no Cleanthony Early, no Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet, no Landry Shamet.
But there is the same kind of heart, determination and fight in these Shockers. Maybe even more. How else do you explain how WSU prevailed over Memphis in a game where it shot just 32.8% from the field?
“There’s nobody on this team that doesn’t think we need to (play angry), that we can play pretty,” Stevenson said. “There’s nobody like that. We’re all good at playing ugly, beating people up, getting beat up, taking a hit and throwing a punch and coming out on top. That’s how it goes around here.”
Memphis, with its collection of blue-chip recruits and future NBA players, tried to beat WSU by playing individual basketball. The Shockers don’t have any players who were five-star prospects, but they do have a collection of players who have bonded and are willing to battle for each other — something that cannot be rated on the star system.
On Thursday, WSU had eight players who scored between six and 16 points. Like it has been all season, it was a team effort up and down the roster.
“We don’t have as many top-100 players or McDonald’s All-Americans and lottery picks as they do, but we do have 13 very talented players,” Marshall said. “I feel confident going all the way down through our 13 scholarship players and they can all help us win and they all did help us win.”
And now Wichita State is beginning to force its way into the national conversation as one of just eight teams remaining with one loss or fewer. If the Shockers take care of business this Sunday at Connecticut, then they are poised for a sizable jump up in the national rankings.
To many outside of the program, this feels one year ahead of schedule for a team that still has 10 of 13 scholarship players as freshmen or sophomores.
But to those inside, namely Marshall, this was the expectation all along. Now the rest of the nation is catching up.
So does Thursday’s win put the Shockers back in the national spotlight? Either way, it won’t change what Marshall and the Shockers have known all along: that this team can be special this season.
“I don’t know, that’s up to you guys,” Marshall said with a wry smile. “I’m in little Wichita here. I’m just doing my thing.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
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