Wichita State basketball takes nation’s second-longest road winning streak to Temple
There was something symbolic for Gregg Marshall and the returners on the Wichita State men’s basketball team to survive a double-overtime thriller in a raucous environment at Connecticut and emerge victorious on Sunday.
After all, Connecticut was the site where the Shockers hit rock bottom last season in the form of an 80-60 loss that dropped them to 8-11. That was the last time WSU’s then-freshmen felt hopeless, as the Shockers flipped their season around following that 20-point loss.
One year ago, WSU was helpless on the road. Now the Shockers have eight straight road wins, the nation’s second-longest road winning streak.
“It’s pretty obvious this team has come a long way and these kids have really improved and they’ve grown up in a year,” Marshall said. “Since then, we’re 29-5 and have a lot of good wins, including this one.”
No. 16 Wichita State (15-1, 3-0 American) will try to tack on one more to its road winning streak at 8 p.m. Central time Wednesday against Temple (9-6, 1-3 American) at the Liacouras Center.
While there have been longer road winning streaks — WSU won 12 straight from Nov. 20, 2013-Dec. 3, 2014 and 11 straight from Jan. 17, 2017-Jan. 20, 2018 — the current eight-game streak has featured more impressive wins.
Using Ken Pomeroy’s team rankings, WSU has taken down five top-100 teams — Furman (59), Clemson (36), Indiana (52), Oklahoma State (62) and UConn (76) during this current streak. That’s already more than the 2013-14 streak, which included four top-100 wins over Tulsa (82), Saint Louis (35), Alabama (86) and Northern Iowa (95), and more than the 2017-18 streak, which featured three top-100 wins over Loyola-Chicago (97), Baylor (34) and Oklahoma State (59).
“Coach (Marshall) always tells us that toughness and defense always travel,” WSU sophomore Dexter Dennis said in his radio interview after the UConn win.
“We were together. It’s not going to be easy to win on the road. If it’s us together against everybody in here, that’s all we need. We saw that last year when we started to win more games.”
In its last 34 games, WSU has won 29, including a spirited run to the NIT semifinals last spring that saw the Shockers knock off Furman, Clemson and Indiana on the road.
There’s a confidence in this group that was expressed by WSU sophomore Erik Stevenson following the team’s win over Memphis last week.
“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,” Stevenson said.
That kind of confidence has rubbed off on this year’s freshmen class. Winning on the road is all that these freshmen know, not any of the pain that last season’s Shockers had to go through when they lost their first six road games of the season by 101 combined points.
That’s how WSU was able to survive blowing a nine-point lead in the final 65 seconds of regulation at UConn and win in double overtime.
“We kept our composure and our confidence because we believed that we could still win this ball game,” WSU sophomore Jamarius Burton said.
“This was a mentally tough game, so we just had to stay together and stay resilient and come together for the win,” freshman Tyson Etienne added.
Temple is on a three-game losing streak, including a shocking 14-point loss at home to Tulane on Saturday.
The Owls have played WSU tough in every matchup since the Shockers moved to the American and WSU is expecting no different on Wednesday night. But they welcome the challenge and look forward to proving themselves once again.
“I don’t think we’re proving anything to ourselves because we have that self-confidence in our team,” Etienne said. “But as far as the nation goes, we came back and showed them we’re not the young, inexperienced guys you may associate us with. We can do this. We have a mature level. We may be young in age, but we can pull off tough wins.”
No. 16 Wichita State at Temple
Records: WSU 15-1, 3-0 AAC; Temple 9-6, 1-3 AAC
When: 8 p.m. Central time Wednesday
Where: The Liacouras Center, Philadelphia (10,206)
TV: ESPNU
Streaming: WatchESPN
Radio: KEYN, 103.7 FM
Series: Temple leads 3-5 (Temple leads 1-0 at Temple)
Projected starters
| No. | Temple | Pos. | Ht. | Wt. | Gr. | Pts. | Reb. | Ast. |
| 15 | Nate Pierre-Louis | G | 6-4 | 170 | Jr. | 10.6 | 8.8 | 3.1 |
| 0 | Alani Moore | G | 5-10 | 170 | Sr. | 8.9 | 2.9 | 2.7 |
| 1 | Quinton Rose | G | 6-8 | 185 | Sr. | 14.4 | 4.7 | 3.8 |
| 10 | Jake Forrester | F | 6-8 | 218 | So. | 7.9 | 4.5 | 0.3 |
| 4 | J.P. Moorman | F | 6-7 | 205 | Jr. | 5.8 | 5.6 | 2.1 |
Coach: Aaron McKie, first season, 9-6
| No. | Wichita State | Pos. | Ht. | Wt. | Gr. | Pts. | Reb. | Ast. |
| 2 | Jamarius Burton | G | 6-4 | 200 | So. | 11.1 | 3.7 | 3.8 |
| 1 | Tyson Etienne | G | 6-1 | 192 | Fr. | 10.4 | 2.1 | 1.6 |
| 10 | Erik Stevenson | G | 6-3 | 198 | So. | 14.1 | 5.4 | 2.6 |
| 5 | Trey Wade | F | 6-6 | 219 | Jr. | 8.4 | 6.4 | 1.7 |
| 21 | Jaime Echenique | C | 6-11 | 258 | Sr. | 10.3 | 5.2 | 0.4 |
Coach: Gregg Marshall, 13th season, 323-114
.jpg)