‘We do that over here, too’: How Wichita State rose to the challenge to beat Houston
For five straight days leading up to Thursday’s game, all the Wichita State players heard from the coaching staff was about Houston’s rebounding.
About how Houston was the best offensive rebounding team in the country. About how the numbers say Houston should dominate a vulnerable WSU men’s basketball team in the rebounding battle. About how the No. 6-ranked Cougars were simply considered tougher than the Shockers right now.
In the pregame scouting report, WSU interim coach Isaac Brown told the players there were three keys to the game: “Rebound, rebound, and rebound.”
It was a psychological ploy by Brown and his coaching staff for the highest-stakes game of the season. They wanted to make WSU’s players so sick and tired of hearing about how Houston was the tougher team that they would be even more motivated to change that perception.
Consider the tactic a success: WSU out-rebounded Houston, 35-33, and became just the fourth team in the last two seasons to grab a higher percentage of offensive rebounds (45.5% to 42.9%) than Houston in the Shockers’ historic 68-63 victory at Koch Arena to move into first place in the American Athletic Conference.
Entering Thursday, WSU was 0-6 at home against teams ranked No. 6 or better since knocking off No. 2 Louisville, 84-78, on Feb. 25, 1967. WSU’s last win over a top 10 team was a 76-72 triumph at No. 5 Cincinnati on Feb. 18, 2018, while its last win over a top 10 team at Koch Arena came on Feb. 28, 2015, when the Shockers topped No. 10 Northern Iowa 74-60.
“They’re a great team and they’re known for their toughness, but we do that over here, too,” WSU sophomore Tyson Etienne said of Houston. “It was great to be on the court competing against a top-10 team, but we’re also good here in Wichita, Kansas.”
It was a stunning result in the game-within-the-game, not because WSU successfully kept Houston off the offensive glass — the Cougars finished with 15 offensive rebounds and out-scored WSU 21-15 in second-chance points — but because the Shockers grabbed 15 offensive rebounds of their own in two less chances.
As Houston coach Kelvin Sampson put it afterward, “they did to us what we usually do to other teams.”
“We’ve been a good rebounding team here for a long time,” Sampson said. “I just thought that team was tougher than us on the boards. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that in seven years, especially the last six years. Very rarely. That team was tougher than we were on the boards, and that’s certainly disappointing.”
Brown has been on the sidelines for all eight of the clashes with Houston since WSU joined the American four seasons ago. He’s seen first-hand how relentless and devastating Houston can be crashing the glass, a major reason why the Cougars had won six straight in the series before Thursday’s game.
The coach knew ending that losing skid would require his players to dig deeper than they have all season to find another level of energy, focus and toughness. It can be just as mentally wearing as physically, which is why Brown beamed with pride when it was relayed that his team had indeed won the rebounding battle.
“It take such a good effort that I’m going to give them the day off (Friday),” Brown said. “When you play Houston, they just keep coming at you, coming at you, coming at you, hitting you, hitting you, hitting you. It takes a lot out of you.”
That consistent pressure Houston places on defenses typically overwhelms opponents, which is why what WSU was able to accomplish on Thursday all the more impressive.
Houston pummeled WSU for the game’s first 29 minutes, tracking down more than half of its own misses. But when they absolutely had to have them, the Shockers secured eight of 10 possible defensive rebounds and limited Houston to just two offensive rebounds in the final 11 minutes.
For a team that ranked in the bottom-20 nationally in defensive rebounding up against the nation’s best offensive rebounding team, it was a rather remarkable performance in the clutch.
“I’m just so excited about that,” Brown said. “They met the challenge. Every time the ball is up in the air, you’ve got to find someone to touch. I thought our guys did a great job of going to make contact.”
After succumbing to bad habits — like ball-watching when shots go up and failing to finish box-outs — when defensive rebounding in the first half, WSU was locked in and rarely missed an assignment boxing out in the game’s final 11 minutes.
WSU lost an agonizing amount of 50-50 balls in the first half. But when the game was on the line in the second half, the Shockers seemed to win every loose ball they needed.
“You’ve definitely got to come to play and have that hard hat on to beat Houston,” WSU senior Alterique Gilbert said.
Senior Trey Wade, more under-sized than usual as a 6-foot-6 power forward up against Houston’s front line, came up with a rather important 50-50 ball with WSU clinging to a 58-53 lead in the final four minutes.
Wade made a defensive rotation to cut off a basket in the lane to force a kick-out pass, then as the shot went up, turned and boxed out Houston’s 6-8 Reggie Chaney the best he could. When the ball caromed their way, both went up for the rebound and tipped the ball up. This is the kind of rebound WSU was not procuring in the first half. But this time, the Shockers kept the ball alive and ultimately Wade snatched it out of the air on his second try.
In asking the players what the difference was, they said it was simple: at some point you have to draw a line in the sand.
“Losing to them six straight times, you really don’t want let someone beat up on you all the time,” Dennis said. “You have to match their intensity, if not overtake it. If you don’t, then you’re going to get embarrassed. That’s something they’ve been doing and that’s their culture, but it’s also a part of our culture that’s been built here. ‘Play Angry’ has been that mindset that has made this program.”
Just as important as WSU boarding out at a 80% rate on the defensive end in the final 11 minutes, the Shockers grabbed five out of a possible 11 offensive rebounds during that same time frame. Two of those offensive rebounds led to second-chance points, which helped WSU extend its lead in crucial situations.
It was the second-highest offensive rebounding percentage (45.5%) posted by the Shockers this season.
“I think this shows that we can do it,” Dennis said. “A lot of games we really didn’t rebound. It looked like we almost weren’t trying. Now that we’ve done it, now it’s about doing it every game. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, we just have to rebound every game.”
This story was originally published February 19, 2021 at 6:40 AM.
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