An offensive crisis: Here are the three things that are plaguing the Shockers
Would you believe that Wichita State has the seventh-best defense in the country?
It’s easy to forget how superb the Shockers have been on that end of the floor when WSU has averaged a meager 52.7 points in the three losses during its the last five games.
Those offensive woes cost WSU a chance to be in a four-way tie in the loss column atop the American Athletic Conference standings, as the Shockers delivered another stellar defensive effort at Tulsa over the weekend. But WSU squandered it with 25 missed three-pointers and 34.5% shooting from the field in a 54-51 loss.
Tulsa (15-6, 7-1 AAC) is alone in first place and the Shockers (17-4, 5-3 AAC) are two games back with a much more difficult schedule ahead, beginning Thursday with Cincinnati (14-7, 7-2 AAC) coming to Koch Arena.
Ice-cold shooting is once again plaguing the Shockers, who suffered from the same thing last season. WSU’s 40.4% accuracy from the field this season ranks No. 307 in the country. So what is wrong with the Shockers’ offense?
1. Not hitting open shots
WSU’s previous two conference losses were the result of a sputtering offense that failed to generate enough open shots. That was not the case at Tulsa, however.
“You have to make shots. You have to make wide-open shots. We had a hard time doing that (Saturday),” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said after the Tulsa loss. “Obviously we could have had more movement of the ball. We could have gotten the ball into the middle a little more. But the shots we were missing early in the first half, I’m thinking off the top of my head, four, five, six shots just wide open, no one near them. We’ve just got to knock them in.”
WSU’s offense in the halfcourt was far from perfect, but the Shockers had more open shots against Tulsa than they did in the losses to Temple and Houston combined. Marshall’s suspicions were proven correct after studying the game film that revealed 16 of the 31 three-pointers WSU attempted were clean looks. Of those 16 open shots, WSU made just two.
Even when WSU pushed the tempo and caught Tulsa’s defense out of position in transition, the Shockers never made Tulsa pay. In fact, of the 10 possessions WSU had that finished in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock, the Shockers scored just two points and missed eight of nine shots — many of them wide open shots from beyond the arc.
“We couldn’t hit some wide-open shots, especially early in the second half,” Marshall said. “We just couldn’t knock them down. That’s the difference in the game.”
There’s no doubt WSU’s offense has issues with spacing, decision-making and effective actions. But there’s also a reason why basketball coaches like to say everything looks better when the ball goes in the basket.
WSU ranks dead-last in the AAC with its 36.5% shooting from the field in eight conference games. When the ball isn’t going in, everything else looks bad too, and that’s why the rest of WSU’s problems stem from its inability to make shots.
2. Indecision in timely moments
It’s worth mentioning again that WSU is still one of the youngest teams in the country, something that might have been forgotten during the team’s 15-1 start. But the fact remains that all of WSU’s guards are either freshmen or sophomores.
It’s also important to remember that Tulsa’s shape-shifting matchup zone has caused fits for almost every team in the American. So WSU’s struggles are not unique.
But there is a clear road map to beat Tulsa’s defense, which includes dribble penetration, decisive passing and paint touches. Those were three things that WSU did not have nearly enough of on Saturday. And to make matters worse, WSU squandered too many of the chances that it did generate on the limited times it did do those things.
“Our ability to keep those guys in front of us and keep the ball out of the paint,” Tulsa coach Frank Haith said of the two biggest keys to the win. “We wanted to protect the paint. We felt like they would try to attack us in the high post.”
WSU’s only consistent source of offense in the first half was through center Jaime Echenique, who scored 13 of his team-high 15 points before halftime. But Haith made the halftime adjustment to start fronting Echenique in the post, then relying on a second defender to be on the backside to dissuade WSU from throwing lobs over the top.
Again, this all became much easier for Tulsa because WSU was not a threat from outside the arc. That allowed Tulsa’s backside defenders to linger a second or two longer to help on Echenique. The strategy effectively took Echenique out of the game, limiting him to just five post touches in the second half. It wasn’t a coincidence WSU mustered only 22 points in the second half without its reliable scorer touching the ball every time down.
This is where experience comes into play. At some point, WSU’s guards needed to come to the conclusion that the long ball was just not falling that game. Instead, the Shockers kept chucking against Tulsa’s zone because that was what was easily available to them — by design. Tulsa made it difficult for WSU to feed Echenique the ball in the post, but that doesn’t mean it was impossible.
“When you’re playing against that zone, you see shots that you want but you don’t know if that’s the smart shot in the right situation,” WSU freshman Tyson Etienne said. “It’s the first time we’ve matched up against something like that.”
When WSU needed to dig a little deeper and work a little harder to come up with those touches in the middle or feed Echenique inside, it instead took the easy route and shot outside jumpers. The end result was WSU taking 18 three-pointers (with only three makes) of 29 second-half shots, which led to fewer attacks toward the rim and ultimately WSU shot just seven free throws. Another consequence was Echenique only taking three shots in the second half after a dominant first half.
3. Not effective with off-ball actions
The things that have plagued WSU’s offense the most since conference play began has been how ineffective its off-ball actions have been. Simply put, WSU is failing to gain any kind of advantage from screening or cutting away from the basketball.
WSU can help itself with better executing the details. The bigs can wait an extra split-second to make sure they seal the defender on screens. The wings can be more crisp cutting and curling off of those screens. The ball handlers can be better at dribbling closer to the screens and not allow defenders to shoot the gap. All of these things are harder to do against conference opponents, which do much more thorough scouting.
“There are just very little secrets at this point in the year when you’re playing teams twice and you played them two or three times the previous year,” Marshall said last week. “So the trickery is gone. That’s why I love nonconference because some of our sets we can turn into easy baskets. You don’t get as many in conference play.
“It becomes grind-it-out, breakdown basketball and players have got to make plays and make shots and players have to be physically imposing on the glass and impose their will to get loose balls.”
Too often WSU possessions end up following this dreary script: the first action to create a scoring look does not get open, which leaves WSU either passing or dribbling mindlessly out front. After not accomplishing anything dangerous for the first 20 seconds of the possession, the center rushes to the top of the key to set a late ball screen and the ball handler is left less than five seconds to make a play.
Any one of WSU’s young guards could develop into a great one-on-one player, but it’s painfully obvious that right now the Shockers lack an isolation playmaker. That’s backed up by the numbers on Synergy, which say WSU ranks in the 18th percentile of Division I with its 0.61 points per possession on isolation plays. Lacking an iso scorer doesn’t have to be a bad thing for WSU, but it becomes an issue when so many possessions come down with WSU being forced to create at the end of the shot clock.
WSU had 25 possessions against Tulsa that ended in the final 10 seconds of the shot clock and scored just 13 points on those possessions. Put in those unfavorable situations, WSU missed 12 of 16 shots and committed seven turnovers — including three shot-clock violations.
Right now the Shockers aren’t great at the details and they don’t have the margin for error because their outside shots aren’t falling. That’s put a strain on the entire offense and prevented WSU from cashing in on wins with its top-10 defense.
This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
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