‘We just have to do it’: Wichita State focused on better defensive rebounding at UCF
Excuses could be made when reviewing the 18 offensive rebounds that Wichita State allowed in its last game against Temple.
Whether it was an air ball or a strange and usual bounce on the rim, defensive rebounds continued to elude the Shockers in their worst rebounding performance of the season by allowing Temple to grab 41.5% of its own misses.
“Man, the balls seem to not be going our way sometimes,” a frustrated WSU senior Trey Wade said afterward.
But bad bounces can’t explain how WSU, a program that has finished ranked in the top 40 nationally in defensive rebounding in 17 of the last 18 seasons, plummeted to No. 324 this season.
WSU interim coach Isaac Brown has been perplexed by the drop off in defensive rebounding this season. He’s asked about WSU’s struggles after almost every game and he ensures that the coaching staff is trying everything to make WSU a better defensive rebounding team.
“We’re just not rebounding at a high level,” Brown said. “We’ve got to do a better job on checking out. It’s got to be all five guys. We’re trying to practice it every day. We’re doing rebounding drills. We’re doing contact drills. We’re doing positioning drills. Everything you can think of, we’ve done it to try to be a better rebounding team.”
Despite its most glaring weakness, Wichita State (11-4) has been able to overcome it during a 7-2 start in American Athletic Conference play. But the Shockers know they’ll have to improve to continue their winning ways with the schedule increasing in difficulty beginning with Wednesday’s 6 p.m. game at Central Florida (streaming on ESPN+).
“We just have to do it at this point,” WSU junior Dexter Dennis said. “There’s a lot of things we can say, but that’s one of our weaknesses. We just have to lock in and focus on doing it. We’ve got to buckle down because we don’t want that to catch up with us later on in the season in any close games. That could be the difference.”
There are certain factors working against WSU this season.
For starters, the Shockers are undersized in almost every matchup with a front line featuring the 6-foot-6 Wade at power forward and 6-8 Morris Udeze at center. WSU no longer has a giant in the middle like 6-11 Jaime Echenique who was able to tower above crowds and secure defensive rebounds.
“We’re a little undersized this year, so it’s a little different,” Wade admitted. “But that doesn’t change our mentality. We still have to go out there and rebound.”
While there were plenty of fluky bounces against Temple, there were even more times when a WSU player would stare at the flight path of the ball in the air instead of turning around, finding their man, and boxing them out.
The encouraging thing for WSU is that improving in that regard only requires better discipline, something that can be drilled into players.
“We definitely have to clean that up,” WSU’s Tyson Etienne said. “We can’t allow a team to come into our home and get that many offensive rebounds.”
Brown said he likes how open WSU’s players have been to learning and improving.
“The eye in the sky doesn’t lie, so we go back and watch film and those guys don’t take it to heart,” Brown said. “They come into practice with a good attitude and try to get better and learn from their mistakes.”
Both of WSU’s games are on the road this week — a road trip to SMU is coming up on Sunday — and Brown will be looking for improved resiliency after the Shockers’ last two road trips ended in losses.
“We’ve just got to be tougher on the road,” Brown said. “Anytime you go on the road, there’s times you might not be making shots and you can’t let that affect your defense. Our defense has to carry us on the road. We’ve still got to rebound and defend when we’re not making shots. That’s the biggest thing for us.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2021 at 11:20 AM.
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