Wichita State basketball suffers first conference loss with another defeat at Houston
Houston remains the road trip in the American Athletic Conference that most defies the Wichita State men’s basketball team.
Cold shooting in the second half allowed a 10-point lead to slip away as the Shockers lost 70-63 to No. 11-ranked Houston on Wednesday evening at the Fertitta Center. It was WSU’s sixth straight loss to Houston, including an 0-4 road record since joining the AAC with an average margin of defeat of 15.8 points.
There were flashes of strong play that WSU (6-3, 2-1 AAC) had used to build a five-game winning streak, including three straight wins on the road as an underdog, but they were ultimately undone by a game-defining 16-0 second-half run by Houston (8-1, 4-1 AAC). The loss brought the Shockers level with Houston, Tulsa (7-3, 4-1), SMU (6-1, 2-1) and Memphis (6-4, 2-1) as one-loss teams in conference play.
“That’s a top-10 team in the country and we showed we can compete with them, and if a couple things go the other way we come out with a win,” said WSU’s Tyson Etienne. “I’m encouraged by that. Last year we got annihilated here and we bounced back with a new team and some young guys.
“This doesn’t faze me. This is basketball. You’re going to lose sometimes. It’s about how you bounce back. We’re going to be all right. We’re going to keep going.”
Etienne notched his fourth 25-point scoring outburst of his breakout sophomore campaign to go along with a team-high eight rebounds, but his game-high 25 points on Wednesday came on 20 shots. WSU junior Dexter Dennis also delivered a strong game, scoring 18 points on 5-of-9 shooting with five rebounds.
While Etienne and Dennis combined for 43 points, the other eight Shockers could only muster 20 points on 30 shots (26.7% shooting). The team’s 33.9% shooting was close to a season-low, although that’s come to be an expectation when playing at Houston — the Shockers have shot a combined 33% in their four trips there.
“We were able to make shots in the first half and those were the same shots we got in the second half, but we just didn’t make those shots,” WSU interim coach Isaac Brown said. “We just couldn’t put it together for 40 minutes and defend at a high level in the second half. It wasn’t about our offense. It was about our defense not defending at a high level. We gave up 45 points in one half, that’s not good basketball. We’ve got to get better at defending at a high level when we can’t make shots on the road.”
While the final result may have been the same for WSU, its effort compared to the last trip to the Fertitta Center was markedly better. And that mattered, mostly to the coaches and five players who took a hit to their pride when WSU essentially rolled over in a 33-point loss at Houston that proved to be last season’s rock bottom.
WSU was even in full control of the game with a 10-point lead early in the second half, but a mix of bad luck on shot-making and poor ball handling affected WSU’s commitment to the defense that established the lead in the first half. As soon as WSU took a 35-25 lead with 18:44 remaining, the next seven minutes could not have gone worse.
It only took nine possessions for Houston to reel off a 16-0 run on 6-of-8 shooting. Meanwhile, the Shockers saw their 10-point lead turn into a six-point deficit following a seven-minute scoring drought that included nine straight missed field goals and four turnovers in a span of 12 possessions.
“It’s very tough,” Dennis said of not allowing missed shots to affect defense at the other end. “That’s got to be one of those things that’s just a given, whether you’re hitting shots or not. We did it before at USF when we weren’t hitting shots but we kept guarding. This is definitely something we’ll learn from.”
WSU closed to within four points on three separate occasions, but never could find the defensive stand it needed to rally. Houston stretched its lead to 14 points with 5:44 remaining, but WSU was able to cut that in half by the end of regulation with 16 of its final 17 points coming from Etienne (11) and Dennis (5) in the final six minutes.
Houston made 46.2% of its shots and scored 45 points in the second half, as it had four scorers in double-digits in Quentin Grimes (22 points, 9 rebounds), Justin Gorham (14 points, 10 rebounds), Dejon Jarreau (13 points, 10 rebounds) and Marcus Sasser (12 points).
It mirrored WSU’s 2019 trip to Houston when it took a 38-33 lead into halftime, only to lose 79-70 after giving up a 15-2 run to start the second half.
“The biggest thing is not letting our offense affect our defense,” Etienne said. “I think because we weren’t making shots and we were cold, we got a little stagnant on defense. It took away some of our fire. But we can learn from that. Defense is something you can always control. You can’t always control whether shots drop or not, but you can always control your effort on defense, talking, being in the right spot.”
WSU’s mettle was tested early, as Houston reeled off an 11-0 run early in the first half for a surge that might have broken the Shockers’ spirits a year ago. But not this year’s team.
WSU went toe-to-toe with the unanimous conference favorites and played a better first 20 minutes, taking a 38-33 lead into halftime. The Shockers held a 14-0 advantage in points off turnovers in the first half, as they committed just three in 31 possessions against a Houston defense that specialized in forcing them. Meanwhile, WSU capitalized on all six of Houston’s mistakes, most notably when Dennis picked off a cross-court pass and finished at the other end with a ferocious tomahawk slam.
Houston entered as a top-five offensive rebounding team in the country, but WSU actually pulled away late on back-to-back tip-ins from junior center Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler. While Houston certainly lived up to its billing with 15 offensive rebounds for 15 second-chance points, WSU wasn’t far behind with 14 offensive rebounds for 11 second-chance points.
“We’re disappointed in the loss, but I’m pleased with our effort,” Brown said. “We just have to have a better defensive effort. We missed a couple open shots on offense. These guys feel like they can play with anybody. Houston is a really good basketball team and there’s a reason why they’re No. 11 in the country. We just couldn’t complete it by defending at a high level in the second half.”
WSU will return to Wichita to host its first American game of the season, a 3:30 p.m. Sunday game broadcast on ESPN2 from Koch Arena against a struggling Cincinnati (2-6, 0-3 AAC) team that has lost five straight games.
This story was originally published January 6, 2021 at 9:09 PM.
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