‘I’m my biggest critic’: WSU’s Dexter Dennis dismisses critics of slow offensive start
In its best form, Twitter is a social media platform that gives athletes the ability to connect with their fans.
But being one “@” away from fans also opens athletes up to reading biting criticism of their performances and even personal attacks on their appearance. Wichita State junior Dexter Dennis is well aware of this side of social media.
Just last week, when Dennis was mired in a scoring slump — averaging 5.7 points on 26.5% shooting — a random stranger on the Internet tagged Dennis in a tweet and asked if he was more worried about the length of his shorts than he was playing basketball.
“Trade places with me (laughing emoji),” Dennis tweeted back.
Some would advise Dennis not to respond to anonymous critics, but the 6-foot-5 junior from Baker, La. says it doesn’t bother him at all.
“I’m my own biggest critic, so whatever they say it’s not even close to what I tell myself,” Dennis said with a grin following a slump-busting, season-high 13 point-performance in WSU’s 81-43 victory over Newman on Wednesday.
After thinking about the proclamation for a second, Dennis had to correct himself.
“Well no, I’m lying. It’s probably a tie between me and my mother,” Dennis said. “Most people think your parents are your biggest supporters and are going to make excuses for you all the time, but my mother doesn’t. She always holds me accountable. There’s been a lot of situations where I think other parents would probably make excuses for their kids. She’s my anchor. She holds me down. Both of my parents, I appreciate them dearly.”
Dawn McQuirter, Dennis’ mother, was a former Division I basketball player herself. She knows the game and knows her son even better. So while Dennis has been struggling with his shot this season, she has been watching from her home in Louisiana and always has a breakdown of her son’s performance when they talk after games.
And mom doesn’t sugar-coat it: Dennis has struggled on offense this season. That’s not to say he hasn’t excelled at other things, like defense, but people start paying more attention to your points per game average when you go through the NBA Draft process like Dennis did before returning to WSU for his junior season.
McQuirter has seen Dennis overcome adversity his whole life. Just last season, Dennis returned from a three-game leave of absence after a slow start to the season and average 11 points and 5.6 rebounds and drill 39% of his three-pointers in conference play.
“I don’t know what stuck in his head to get him so driven, but he’s stuck,” McQuirter said last season. “I don’t know where he got that resiliency from, but he did and he’s convinced all of us. He’s made me a believer.”
Dennis has once again been an elite defender for WSU this season, but the rest of his game has suffered — his scoring, shooting and rebounding have all decreased from last season. In five games against Division I competition, Dennis is shooting 25.6% from the field, which includes a troubling 22.2% mark on two-pointers, and just two trips to the free throw line (both misses).
The good news is that Dennis still commands respect from opponents on the perimeter because they know what he’s capable of despite what the percentages say right now, so he’s still able to effectively space the floor for the Shockers. Dennis also is one of the better WSU players at the tiny details of offense, like setting screens, cutting hard and making the right pass.
On Wednesday, the scoring finally came for Dennis. He looked more confident and aggressive from the outset than any other game so far this season, evident after the first play of the game when he pump-faked his defender on the three-point line, took one power dribble toward the basket and elevated for a thundering slam dunk 30 seconds into the game.
“I thought that was huge for his confidence,” WSU interim coach Isaac Brown said.
Just as important for the coach was seeing Dennis sink 2 of 4 three-pointers after the junior had made just 23.8% of his shots (5 of 21) from beyond the arc in his last four games.
Brown bought up WSU’s 66-62 road win at SMU last season — just nine months ago — when Dennis scored a career-high 25 points with seven three-pointers to help the Shockers to a miraculous 24-point comeback. The coach has tried to remind Dennis that he’s more than capable of being a great shooter for WSU.
“When Dexter is making threes, it’s hard to guard us because then we have the floor spread out so wide,” Brown said. “When we run ball screens with him setting them, you can’t hedge, you’ve got to switch and that gives our team a different look. Alterique Gilbert is getting downhill, guys are locked onto Tyson Etienne and we can spread the floor with shooters and that makes us extremely hard to guard.”
The best guess by Dennis for his slow start was the abnormal offseason due to the coronavirus pandemic. Gyms were closed everywhere, so he wasn’t able to spend as much time shooting as he wanted this summer. And then WSU’s typical lead-up to conference play, which includes a scrimmage, at least one exhibition game, and seven or eight non-conference games, was condensed to three regular-season games before WSU played its first conference game.
Despite the lack of scoring from Dennis, WSU has been able to start 2-0 in the American Athletic Conference and win four straight games heading into Saturday’s road game at Mississippi.
Even after a slump-busting 13-point performance on Wednesday, Dennis said he wasn’t satisfied yet. He knows he’s capable of much more this season.
“I’m kind of hard on myself a little bit. My expectations are really, really high,” Dennis said. “When I don’t perform well, I’m just trying to do my best to do whatever I can to perform well again. When I do, there’s still always room for improvement.”
This story was originally published January 1, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
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