What Wichita State basketball can learn from loss at Houston and what went wrong
It has been said that basketball can be as simple as a make-or-miss game, that it doesn’t matter what plays a coach draws up or which schemes teams follow, the game will ultimately be decided by whether players are hitting shots in that given game.
Ask Wichita State why it lost 70-63 to No. 11 Houston on Wednesday evening at the Fertitta Center and it’s evident the Shockers subscribe to the theory.
“They made shots, we didn’t make shots,” WSU sophomore Tyson Etienne said after scoring a game-high 25 points. “We got some good looks, we just missed some shots. It’s a long season. Sometimes that’s going to happen. We’ll learn from it. We know we can make shots, but sometimes that’s how the ball bounces.”
What changed when WSU held a 10-point lead early in the second half to the seven-minute scoring drought that allowed Houston to regain control with a 16-0 run?
Back to the slogan.
“We were making shots,” WSU interim coach Isaac Brown said. “The key to the game a lot of times is just making shots. We were able to make shots in the first half. Those were the same shots we got in the second half. We just didn’t make those shots.”
Houston shot just 32.4% from the field in the first half, but scored 45 points on 46.2% shooting the second half. The Cougars must have surely been doing something different, right?
“We ran the same offense that we did in the first half,” Houston veteran coach Kelvin Sampson said. “I’m going to give you guys a groundbreaking statement: your offense is always better when the biscuit goes in the basket. Now quote me on that.”
After The Eagle reviewed the game film, there’s validity to the coaches’ statements.
Isolation plays that Houston was failing to finish in the first started producing points in the second half.
And open shots that Wichita State had canned in the first half started missing when the Shockers started the second half 4 of 18 from the field.
That was especially true for WSU during it seven-minute scoring drought that included 12 straight empty possessions and led to a 16-0 run by Houston that flipped the game for good. The Shockers missed nine straight shots during the dry spell, including five three-pointers, which may lead one to assume that they were settling from outside.
But that was not the case. WSU was taking good, in-rhythm shots with mostly clean shooting windows. It will be an agonizing film study for the Shockers to watch so many shots clang in and out of the rim, any one of which would have stopped Houston’s scoring barrage and potentially altered the momentum of the game.
“Those were the same shots we took at Ole Miss in the second half and we made them,” Brown said. “We just couldn’t make some wide open shots tonight.”
The lesson Brown wanted the Shockers to take away from Wednesday’s defeat instead was with their defense.
“There’s going to be nights where you can’t make shots. That’s going to happen again,” Brown said. “There’s going to be nights where you have 10 straight possessions where you can’t score.
“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. We can’t allow our offense to affect our defense.”
A closer examination of what went wrong with WSU leading 35-25 early in the second half shows how WSU’s misfortune on offense may have weighed the Shockers down on the defensive end.
For starters, it was a demoralizing swing for WSU when Houston’s turnaround was jump-started by Justin Gorham, known more for his tenacious rebounding ability than swishing jumpers. But there was the Houston senior, whose 100-game career featured just 31% accuracy on 58 three-point attempts, executing a pick-and-pop and draining a triple like he had been doing it for years and swishing a corner shot with his foot on the line. There were many other things ahead of stopping Gorham shooting jumpers on the to-do list for WSU’s defense, so these are shots the Shockers simply must live with.
After its third straight empty possession on offense, frustration began to mount for WSU on the ensuing possession when Dexter Dennis fouled Houston’s Quentin Grimes on a made three-pointer. Up until that point, Dennis had once again been superb and was the main reason why the Houston star was 1 for 6 from the field. Dennis was guarding him closely and was miffed when an offensive foul was not called on Grimes for an arm-bar against him. When Grimes passed, Dennis relaxed for just a half-second, which was all the time Grimes needed to dart away for a dribble hand-off. With Dennis late trailing the play, Grimes had the space to immediately launch and because Dennis was out of position for the contest he was called for the foul.
“It’s very tough,” Dennis said when asked about not letting missed shots affecting defense. “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.”
Etienne might be WSU’s stick of dynamite on the offensive end, but even he will have a learning lesson on the defensive end of this game.
The sophomore did so well covering Houston’s DeJon Jarreau in the first half, holding him to 2-of-10 shooting, which made it confusing why Etienne was so willing — and needlessly so — to switch off of his defensive assignment during the tail-end of WSU’s scoring drought.
On two straight trips down the court, Etienne was caught out of position when Houston initiated its half-court set that it forced WSU to switch into a bad mismatch. Both times Clarence Jackson, a forward used to defending big men, was left on an island covering Jarreau. Both occasions ended poorly for WSU.
The first time, with the score tied at 35, Etienne failed to fight through a screen and instead signaled to Jackson to switch, leaving Jackson on Jarreau and Etienne, a 6-2 guard, on Gorham, one of the nation’s top rebounders. Houston put Jackson in a ball screen and he was unfamiliar with his responsibilities guarding a ball handler, initially switching entirely, which left Jarreau open, then lunging forward realizing his mistake, only to watch Jarreau jet past him for a floater in the lane.
The second time, Etienne once again is caught out of position when Houston is bringing the ball up the court. He was originally trailing Jarreau, the in-bounder, while Alterique Gilbert took care of the ball handler. But Jarreau runs past Etienne and makes his initial cut again toward the left corner. It’s possible that WSU was in a match-up zone defense here, but the other four Shockers are relatively close to a mark and Jackson clearly isn’t on the same page because he doesn’t rotate out to Jarreau until Houston passes him the ball in the corner. Whatever the case, the end result once again was a mismatch — Jackson vs. Jarreau — and the Houston senior easily scored on a layup.
These are two examples of how minor mistakes can put a team in a disadvantage that resulted in four points. And when you can’t buy a bucket at the other end, those minor details matter even more.
“Because we weren’t making shots and we were cold, we got a little stagnant on defense,” Etienne said. “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.”
While a lot of WSU’s struggles can be explained away by the relative luck of shot-making, there were other factors that played into the massive shift in the game following when WSU took its 10-point lead.
One of the biggest changes in the final 18 minutes was that Houston finally stopped giving WSU easy offense in transition from its mistakes. The Cougars only committed six turnovers in the first half, but every single one of them were costly. One led to a wide-open three for Ricky Council. Another resulted in a highlight-reel dunk from Dennis. More led to free throws. When you’re up against a top-10 defense in the country, every high-percentage look you can produce is valuable and WSU fully capitalized in the first half with a 14-0 advantage in points off turnovers. Houston even started the second half with three consecutive turnovers, helping WSU balloon its lead to 10.
“Their best offense was our offense,” Sampson said. “Let’s not complicate things. This is a simple game. If you don’t give the ball away, you make them earn it against your defense.
“Sometimes you’ve got to remind them we’re wearing white tonight, so throw it to the guys in white.”
It’s not a coincidence that WSU’s offense struggled when those efficient opportunities vanished in the final 18 minutes. Houston committed just one more turnover and none in the last 15 minutes, which spanned 24 mistake-free possessions. That forced the Shockers to try to penetrate a set Houston defense, one of the toughest in the nation to do so, time and time again.
“We hit a cold spell and I thought our offense affected our defense at the other end,” Brown said. “We didn’t defend at a high level like we normally do. It’s hard to win games when you give up 45 points in the second half.”
On the flip side, after committing just three turnovers in 31 possessions in the first half, the Shockers were plagued by a batch of careless turnovers at the most inopportune time when they were also ice-cold from the field.
WSU had proven to be one of the nation’s best at avoiding turnovers, but committed four of them — all four unforced mistakes — during its string of 12 straight empty possessions in the midst of Houston’s 16-0 run. Gilbert misread an Etienne cut off a screen and sailed a pass out of bounds. Dennis misread Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler and ended up traveling. The ball simply slipped out of the hands of Etienne and Wade during drives. All of those turnovers could have easily been avoided. Instead, they only added to the frustration.
Despite seeing its impressive three-game road underdog winning streak come to an end, WSU should be encouraged by its effort Wednesday at Houston. The Shockers proved they are capable of not only battling with the unanimous conference favorites, but play well enough to build a 10-point lead.
WSU can be emboldened by believing with any better shooting luck in the second half, it would have won the game. And the film will show the other correctable ways that the Shockers could have improved their chances.
A year after WSU hit rock bottom in Houston with a 33-point loss, the Shockers had plenty to be encouraged about leaving the Fertitta Center this time.
“We’re disappointed in the loss, but I’m pleased with our effort,” Brown said. “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.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 6:05 AM.
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