How Wichita State’s missed open looks unlocked fast breaks for Cincinnati in loss
Wichita State was unable to make open shots consistently and that allowed Jarron Cumberland to punish the Shockers in transition.
That is the easiest way to summarize how Cincinnati emerged victorious for the sixth straight time over WSU, this time by a 67-64 count on Sunday afternoon at Fifth Third Arena. Cumberland scored a game-high 24 points, his third game of at least 24 points in the last four games against WSU, and he attempted an American Athletic Conference-record 22 free throws.
An Eagle film review showed WSU attempted 17 open three-pointers and made just five of them. The 29% accuracy on open shots leaves something to be desired, although it maybe shouldn’t be entirely surprising from a team that ranks No. 298 in the country in shooting and shot 32.8% from the field Sunday.
“If you’re going to take the three, you’ve got to make the three at some point,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “I don’t think we had more than one or two bad threes the whole game. I kept thinking in the second half that we’re going to make one of these. One of these are going to fall. We’re due for a three. We had good looks, but somebody has got to put one in.”
But the missed open shots were only the first part of a two-pronged issue for WSU on Sunday that showed how razor-thin the difference is between winning and losing. Not only were the Shockers failing to convert quality looks, but those missed shots were essentially creating a scattered floor and run-out opportunities for Cumberland — and that is where he is at his most devastating.
WSU defended Cumberland extremely well in the half-court when it had its defense set with 6-foot-11 center Jaime Echenique tethered near the rim to dissuade Cumberland from driving. In the half-court, Cumberland shot just 2-for-10 from the field with six turnovers.
But Cumberland still had a big game because he is lethal in transition, where he is able to harness his power, size, acceleration and smarts that almost always end up with a basket or a trip to the foul line. The key for the defense is to make a concerted effort to slow him down before he reaches the three-point arc. If he breaks the perimeter at full speed, it almost always ends in disaster for the defense.
“He is such a good decision-maker that it’s malpractice to not put the ball in his hands, in my opinion,” UC coach John Brannen said. “He’s a guy we ride pretty heavily. He’s usually tough enough to be able to handle that.”
Cumberland is an expert at applying pressure on the defense by using his body to create contact, which forces the officials to make a decision on almost every single play. Sometimes it looks like Cumberland is out of control, like late in the first half when he grabbed a long rebound and transformed into a 6-foot-5, 210-pound bowling ball. He streaked down the court, barreled over Grant Sherfield, sending the WSU freshman sprawling backward, and drew a shooting foul.
Stepping in front of an oncoming freight train is an unpleasant thing to do. Stepping in front of Cumberland is even worse because the defender has little reassurance that they will ultimately be rewarded with a charge. It takes a physical toll on Cumberland, who absorbed 13 fouls on Sunday, but it’s the price of doing business his way.
“I’m sore,” Cumberland said afterward, grinning. “But I could still play, just fighting through it.”
A little soreness is well worth the damage that Cumberland inflicts on his opponents. He almost seeks out contact on his way to the rim, as his collisions are almost always violent and almost always go in his favor. That’s why defenses are sometimes hesitant to slide in front of him in transition, the very thing WSU fell victim to early in the second half when Cumberland went coast-to-coast after an open WSU miss for a three-point play.
“It’s tough, but at the end of the day you’ve got to buckle up your boot straps and step in front of him and take a charge,” WSU freshman Tyson Etienne said. “There were a few times we did that. They might have been called a block, but we did do that. But it can’t be a sometimes thing, it’s got to be an all-the-time thing. That’s something we’ve got to get better at.”
Little point swings like that added up throughout the game for WSU and ultimately cost the Shockers down the stretch.
The first missed opportunity came after WSU had fully erased a nine-point, second-half deficit and tied the score at 58-58 with just over three minutes remaining. The Shockers pushed in transition and Jamarius Burton found Dexter Dennis for an open three-pointer on the left wing that would have given them their first lead of the half.
But Dennis missed, Cincinnati rebounded and Cumberland went to work on the other end. He took a high ball screen, darted left toward the basket and was cut off by Echenique. WSU thought it was an offensive foul, as Cumberland went straight into the chest of Echenique and knocked him over.
Like so many times in those bang-bang situations, Cumberland came out with the foul call. Consider it the lasting benefits of being the reigning AAC Player of the Year. Cumberland made both free throws for a 60-58 lead with 3:03 remaining.
“He just barrels into people and gets to the foul line,” Marshall said. “He knows how to do it.”
The next missed opportunity proved to be the most costly for WSU, which yet again had a possession with the score tied and the chance to take the lead with just more than two minutes remaining. Erik Stevenson couldn’t make a fadeaway jumper to beat the shot clock, but Echenique kept the possession alive and Burton had a point-blank attempt on a put-back that would have given WSU a 62-60 lead with 2:04 remaining.
Somehow, Burton’s shot curled out of the rim and Cincinnati recovered it. Within seconds, Cumberland was racing freely down the court, shifting the pressure to WSU’s defense not to foul, which it could not do as it sent Cumberland back to the foul line as he aggressively attacked a horde of WSU defenders at the rim.
Instead of the Shockers clinging to a two-point lead and forcing UC to attack its set defense, the missed layup sprung Cincinnati on another Cumberland one-man mission in transition that resulted him sinking a go-ahead free throw to give the Bearcats a 61-60 lead that they never relinquished in the final two minutes.
The Shockers (20-7, 8-6 AAC) know only a handful of plays separate them from the mediocre conference record they currently own and potentially a conference-best 11-3 mark. The margin of error between winning and losing can be painfully thin. After losing in the closing seconds at Tulsa and to Cincinnati at Koch Arena, the Shockers were already aware of that. Sunday was just another refresher.
Losing at Cincinnati isn’t likely to drop WSU out of the projected NCAA Tournament field. But for a team that was in desperate need of a validating, Quadrant-1 win for its resume, coming away empty-handed on Sunday stings. It marks yet another close call, another missed opportunity in a season that is quickly running out of them for WSU to prove it’s a worthy team for March Madness.
“We were in the game the whole game,” Burton said. “We were fighting on defense, competing, communicating. We were right there. We just couldn’t make the plays and baskets we needed to make down the stretch.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
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