Shockers play another thriller with Cincinnati that ends in another nail-biting loss
Sunday produced another thrilling chapter in the revived Wichita State-Cincinnati basketball rivalry, with a familiar result: a Bearcats win.
The Shockers erased a nine-point, second-half deficit but couldn’t finish down the stretch in a 67-64 loss in front of a sellout crowd of 12,137 fans at Fifth Third Arena. It was the sixth straight win by the Bearcats over the Shockers and fourth by three points or fewer.
WSU had its chances to win in the final three minutes, but it was once again UC star Jarron Cumberland who was the difference down the stretch. He was once again a bane to WSU, this time scoring 24 points and shooting an AAC-record 22 free throws, making 16 of them to cover up a 3-for-11 shooting effort.
“We’ve just got to make one more play, whether it be a layup or get to the foul line or make a three,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “We’ve got to find someone who can make a big play like Cumberland, who continues to get to the line for them.”
Losing at Cincinnati, which improved to 18-9 overall and moved into a tie for first place in the AAC with an 11-4 record, won’t count as a damaging loss for the Shockers. But when you’re a team close to the NCAA Tournament bubble in desperate need to a marquee Quadrant 1 win that was available on Sunday, it’s certainly a missed opportunity that stings.
Now the pressure grows for WSU (20-7, 9-5 AAC) in the final four games to improve its at-large resume.
“It’s tough to swallow,” WSU freshman Tyson Etienne said. “We’re coming down the wire in a lot of these games, it was basically a one-possession game for the last four minutes of the game. They got some bounces. But that’s college basketball at the end of the day. We’re a young team and we made some young mistakes.”
WSU trimmed UC’s lead to 65-64 when Etienne buried a corner three with 5.5 seconds left. UC leeft the door open when freshman Mika Adams-Woods split a pair of free throws with 3.2 seconds left. That’s when the Shockers committed their biggest blunder.
Down two with the length of the floor to go, Erik Stevenson attempted to throw a heave to the opposite free throw line into a crowd and the pass was easily picked off by Cincinnati.
“The was pass was just short,” said Marshall, who called a timeout on the free throw before to draw up the play. “Erik is a really good passer on that, he just came up short. We were trying to get it to the rim.”
Stevenson led WSU with 13 points on 4-of-14 shooting and added seven rebounds, three assists, three steals and five turnovers. Burton added 11 points for the Shockers, while Jaime Echenique had 10 points on 2-of-10 shooting and nine rebounds.
It was a typical WSU performance: a tremendous defensive effort that held UC to 37.7% shooting and forced 14 turnovers mixed with a sub-par shooting game that saw the Shockers make just 32.8% of their shots.
WSU had its fair share of open chances down the stretch, like a wide-open transition three from the wing by Dexter Dennis, a mid-range jumper by Stevenson and a point-blank follow by Burton that all missed its mark. Any of those shots would have given WSU the lead. Instead, they all missed and UC was able to make four free throws in the final two minutes to close out the game.
“I just want to see a shot fall,” Marshall said. “We had some good looks. We battled. We’ve just got to shoot better than 32%. We had some big looks, some big looks, man. I knew they were going to go down, just in and out.”
“It makes it tougher (to lose) because it wasn’t like they were locking us down,” Etienne added. “We had good looks. We just had shots that go in and out. Those are tough. You see all of us make those shots all the time in practice, so that’s hard.”
Meanwhile, WSU could not stop fouling Cumberland, who racked up 13 fouls on WSU alone and shot more free throws (22) than the entire WSU team (17).
“He just barrels into people and gets to the foul line,” Marshall said. “He knows how to do it.”
WSU battled back from a nine-point deficit in the second half behind Stevenson, who scored six straight points to bring WSU back to within 52-50. UC pushed its lead back out to 57-52, but Stevenson drilled a three and WSU followed with an Echenique three-point play to tie the score at 58 with 4:32 remaining that set up the dramatic finish.
The Shockers went to the locker room down 31-28 at halftime, which felt like another missed opportunity considering UC starter Keith Williams played just three minutes because of foul trouble and Cumberland made just one field goal in the first half.
But a combination of cold WSU shooting and strong Cincinnati defense resulted in the Shockers making just 29% of their shots in the first half. Sprinkle in seven turnovers and points were hard to come by.
WSU did actually spend more time in the lead than Cincinnati in the first half, however. Back-to-back triples by Trey Wade and Noah Fernandes, an unlikely duo who led WSU in scoring with 13 combined points in the first half, put the Shockers up 10-6 after eight minutes.
After UC took a 21-19 lead, WSU ripped off a 9-2 run capped by a Tyson Etienne three-pointer and a Wade basket for a 28-23 lead with 3:27 remaining. But UC would end the half on an 8-0 run to take the halftime lead.
“We’ve just got to find a way to make one more play,” Marshall said.
This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 2:17 PM.
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