Dexter Dennis’ third career double-double pushes the Shockers past UCF for 17th win
The scoring woes of the Shockers look to be a thing of the past.
After failing to crack 56 points the last three games, Wichita State busted out of its scoring slump on Saturday night with an 87-79 victory over Central Florida at Koch Arena. WSU improved to 17-3 overall, equaling its regular-season wins total from last season with five weeks still to play, and moved into a tie for third place in the American Athletic Conference with a 5-2 record.
“We’re pretty good and that’s kind of where we’ve maintained,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “We’ll see where it goes. I don’t know how we’ll continue to evolve and get better. We’ve been in neutral for a while. But we’ve got a lot of talent and a lot of kids that are high-quality individuals. We just have to buckle down and eliminate the silly mistakes.”
Dexter Dennis led the way for WSU with his third career double-double with a game-high 18 points, the second-highest output of his career, and 11 rebounds with three assists. WSU had five scorers in double-digits for the third time this season with Jaime Echenique (14 points, seven rebounds), Grant Sherfield (14 points, six assists), Erik Stevenson (11 points) and Trey Wade (10 points).
WSU dominated the rebounding battle by 17, 45-28, which led to a 19-3 advantage in second-chance points. That gave the Shockers the cushion they needed for a 40% shooting performance from the field that included 10 three-pointers. UCF (11-8, 2-5) shot 37.7% from the field and also made 10 triples on top of 23 of 26 from the free throw line.
The theme of the game was WSU pushing UCF to its limits, only to make a mistake and allow the Knights to crawl back in the game. There were multiple stretches where it looked as if WSU was ready to announce its return with a 20-point drubbing, only to give up a sudden run.
“That was a long, tough game,” Dennis said. “They kept hitting open shots or we wouldn’t match up. We weren’t doing the right thing and they were capitalizing off of it.”
Echenique looked like he ended the game with a 30-second stretch that featured a monstrous dunk and him running the floor for another easy basket to push WSU’s lead to 70-59 with 4:32 remaining. But less than one minute later, UCF had drilled a three and scored on an easy layup to trim the deficit to 70-64 with 3:47 left.
Even when Dennis hit his fourth three-pointer for a 75-64 lead with 2:06 remaining, UCF found a way to make things interesting. The Knights whittled the deficit all the way down to 80-76 with 31 seconds left, but a foul by Darin Green that was upgraded to a flagrant sunk UCF’s comeback attempt. WSU made four straight free throws to push its lead to 84-76 to secure the win.
“I thought we were pulling away there, then we got sloppy and they made tremendous plays and shots and made it more of a game than I thought it would be at the time,” Marshall said. “Give them a lot of credit.”
The Shockers looked in control when Wade dug out an offensive rebound, kicked to Tyson Etienne, who whipped it to Sherfield for a three-pointer and a 49-37 lead with 13:42 remaining. WSU had spent the better part of the last 15 minutes with a double-digit lead, yet UCF still found a way to make things interesting with a 9-1 spurt to trim WSU’s lead to 50-46 with more than 12 minutes remaining.
But with its centers both in foul trouble, UCF had to gamble with a small lineup that left 6-foot-6 point guard Dazon Ingram guarding WSU’s center and vice versa. These two distinct styles led to runs by both sides down the stretch.
“We didn’t anticipate (the extreme foul trouble), that’s for sure,” UCF coach Johnny Dawkins said. “But we had to adjust. This is basketball. Nobody is going to feel sorry for you. You have to find a way to still compete and find a way to still win.”
WSU started with a 7-0 run to push its lead to 57-46 with 8:52 remaining, as Dennis ignited it with a three-pointer, then Echenique and Morris Udeze both followed with two free throws when UCF had to foul inside. The last fouled out UCF starting center Collin Smith, who was the team’s leading scorer at 13.2 points per game, but finished with just two points on 1 of 6 shooting in 15 minutes.
But then UCF answered back with a run of its own, punishing the Shockers in transition with so many confusing matchups. That opened up Matt Milon for an open three he swished to trim WSU’s lead to 57-51 with 8:05 remaining.
“A (win) is a (win), so we just have to keep moving up and learning from our mistakes,” Echenique said. “I thought we shared the ball really well and we were really unselfish and that’s what got us the win tonight.”
WSU followed a similar script from its recent performances in the first half: grind-it-out defense good enough to cover up some suspect shooting numbers.
The Shockers limited UCF to eight baskets on 30.8% shooting, while pounding the Knights on the glass for a 23-12 advantage that WSU capitalized on for a 13-0 advantage in second-chance points and 18-8 advantage in points in the paint. WSU also put UCF’s two centers, Smith (two fouls) and backup Avery Diggs (four fouls) in foul trouble.
“We did a really good job containing their bigs,” Echenique said. “They were really talented, but they both got in foul trouble really early. That gave us a good advantage and we kept attacking the small lineup.”
Cold shooting kept both sides close through 11 minutes, but WSU created the first separation of the game with an 18-5 run with a refreshing display of Shocker basketball that had been absent for much of the last two weeks.
The run started with seven straight points by WSU with a Sherfield end-of-shot-clock three, a Wade dunk and a pair of free throws by Etienne. But the real run came with the close, spurred on by Echenique’s first three-pointer since Dec. 8.
That brought the Koch Arena crowd to its feet, where it remained as shortly after Jamarius Burton followed with a drive and a dish to Trey Wade for a dunk to open up WSU’s first double-digit lead, 27-16, of the game. The lead would grow to as many as 16 points, 33-17, after Dennis finished a coast-to-coast layup for the Shockers.
But a costly final two minutes allowed UCF to trim the deficit all the way down to 37-28 by halftime, thanks to a three-quarters-court, banked-in shot by Tony Johnson.
This story was originally published January 25, 2020 at 9:26 PM.
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