Cade Cunningham sinks WSU Shockers with game-winning three in final seconds
It was 39 minutes and 50 seconds of the best defense a team could play on a projected No. 1 NBA Draft pick.
Shoot, even those final 10 seconds were superb defense — Oklahoma State freshman Cade Cunningham just showed why every NBA team can’t wait to draft the 6-foot-8 point guard.
Wichita State’s Dexter Dennis contested a three-pointer by Cunningham about as well as possible without fouling, but Cunningham showed why great offense trumps the great defense. Cunningham drilled the three over Dennis’ out-stretched fingertips with 9.8 seconds remaining to break a tie and deliver the game-winner for Oklahoma State in a 67-64 win over WSU at Koch Arena on Saturday afternoon.
“Cade Cunningham showed tonight why he’s a million dollar man,” WSU interim coach Isaac Brown said. “He stepped up and made a big-time shot, what big-time players do. I thought Dexter defended it well, but that’s the reason why he’s the No. 1 pick in the draft. We did a good job on him all night and right there at the end, he just stepped up and made a big shot.”
Following a timeout, WSU had a last chance to force overtime but the Shockers’ over-eagerness derailed the play and left Dennis hoisting a contested three that missed. OSU improved to 6-0 this season, while WSU (1-2) dropped its second straight game at Koch Arena and first with fans — 5% of the 10,506-seat arena was filled.
Cunningham entered averaging 20.2 points per game on 49.3% shooting, but with Dennis as the primary defender, WSU did the most effective job of limiting him of any team yet. The freshman finished with a season-low 10 points on a season-worst 4-of-11 shooting with four turnovers.
But all of that was forgotten with one shot.
“I knew that I was going to take the last shot,” Cunningham said. “I kinda struggled a little bit throughout the game, but the team kept us in it and kept my confidence high. I had full confidence in the shot and it went down.”
That spoiled a spirited comeback led by Tyson Etienne (game-high 19 points) and Alterique Gilbert (14 points), who once again teamed up to deliver big play after big play for the Shockers down the stretch of close games.
With WSU trailing 59-52 with less than six minutes remaining, the duo went to work. Etienne swished a baseline jumper, then Dennis followed with a steal and layup at the other end. After Morris Udeze (10 points) took a charge, Gilbert made back-to-back shots in the lane to cap an 8-0 run and put the Shockers ahead 60-59 with 3:01 remaining.
“We put a lot on them,” Brown said. “We want Alterique creating for others, creating his own and we want Tyson doing the same thing.”
“College basketball is going to know about us,” Etienne said. “It’s December. It’s a long season. We were great last year in December and then we took a slide. This year I believe it’s going to go the other way.”
Oklahoma State inched back ahead on a three-point play by Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe, who gave the Cowboys a 63-60 lead with 1:50 remaining. His eights points were part of OSU’s 38-5 advantage in bench points in the game.
Etienne and Udeze both came through on clutch free throws in the final two minutes for WSU. The most important came from Udeze, a career 48% foul shooter, who made two straight free throws with 34 seconds remaining and WSU trailing by two to tie the game and set up Cunningham’s dramatic game-winner.
“I like the fight, and I like the leadership,” Brown said. “The first thing I heard in the locker room was, ‘Stay together guys, this is on all of us.’ I told them that it’s on all of us, including me. We’ve just got to stay together and be able to finish close games. We’ll start making those big shots there at the end of the game.”
Etienne, WSU’s 6-2 sophomore guard, continued his breakout start to the season with another prolific scoring game. He is averaging 19.7 points per game through WSU’s first three games of the season and finished Saturday 6 of 13 shooting with three more three-pointers.
Etienne was also the one who sparked the Shockers earlier in the second half. With WSU trailing by seven midway, Etienne barreled his way through the lane and made an improbable layup while drawing the foul. After completing the three-point play, Etienne followed that with a transition three to cut WSU’s deficit to 45-44 with 12:44 remaining.
“I was just playing my game, not thinking,” Etienne said. “When I don’t think, stuff like that happens. It’s not necessarily anything that the defense does, it’s just about me staying focused on the present.”
After playing shorthanded the first two games, WSU had its full complement of 13 scholarship players available on Saturday for the first time this season. Junior guard Craig Porter (two assists in five minutes) and redshirt freshman Josaphat Bilau (two points, five rebounds and a steal in six minutes) both showed encouraging flashes in their debuts.
Fans were particularly excited about Bilau, a 6-foot-10 forward from France, who has battled injuries since arriving at WSU more than a year ago. But Bilau was a spark plug off the bench on Saturday in the second half for the Shockers. He grabbed a team-high three offensive rebounds with his last leading to a basket for Dennis, who tied the game at 50-50 with 8:13 remaining in the second half.
“Just high energy, a lot of energy,” Gilbert said of Bilau. “Offensive rebounding, he got us some second looks, which was big for us. A lot of times we weren’t making plays down on that end, so he gave us a little burst, a little confidence down on that end.”
The Shockers did a good job of limiting Cunningham in the first half as well, holding the star to just seven points on 3-of-9 shooting. But WSU failed to capitalize because it committed nine turnovers on offense and were outrebounded 21-12, which included a 9-0 advantage for Oklahoma State in offensive rebounds and a 7-0 advantage in second-chance points.
The two teams traded the lead four times with WSU taking its largest lead, 24-20, on a Dennis corner three-pointer with 6:09 remaining. That’s when the Cowboys’ offense exploded for 20 points in the final six minutes to turn a four-point deficit into a six-point halftime lead.
“I’ve got to get them to put 40 minutes together,” Brown said. “We haven’t had two great halves in the first three games. In this game, we didn’t play well the first half and then we played well the second half. You’re not going to beat good teams like that. You have to put 40 minutes together to win games, especially in our conference. We’ve got some really good teams, and to win those games you’ve got to play hard for 40 minutes.”
WSU is set to open American Athletic Conference play on Tuesday at Tulsa.
This story was originally published December 12, 2020 at 4:07 PM.
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