Wichita State men’s basketball wins at Tulane, can clinch AAC title at home Saturday
The Wichita State men’s basketball team will have the opportunity to win its first American Athletic Conference championship on Saturday at Koch Arena.
Thanks to the Shockers taking care of business on the road Wednesday in a 78-70 win over the Tulane Green Wave in New Orleans, they can secure the best winning percentage in the conference for the regular-season title with a victory over South Florida this weekend. WSU has not won a conference championship since the 2016-17 season, its final in the Missouri Valley.
“I’m so excited about this opportunity for those kids to be in this situation where we could be able to cut down nets in Wichita,” said WSU coach Isaac Brown, who made his first appearance as permanent coach after having the interim tag lifted last Friday. “I like that we control our own destiny. If we win that game, we’re conference champs and we got it in Wichita.”
WSU (14-4, 10-2 AAC) has lost just twice in its last 15 games and will enter this weekend on a season-long, six-game winning streak. Meanwhile, Tulane (9-12, 4-12 AAC) closed out its regular season with a fourth straight loss.
It was a must-win game for WSU to not only keep alive its conference title hopes, but also its NCAA Tournament at-large hopes. A win over the NET’s No. 163 team won’t improve WSU’s postseason resume, but a loss would have been fatal.
“I came here to win,” said senior point guard Alterique Gilbert, a graduate transfer from Connecticut. “We’re having a little bit of success now and our biggest thing is to come in and stay even-keeled. We worked this hard to get here, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do. Really, for us, it’s just getting started.”
While Gilbert was far from perfect (1-for-10 shooting and six turnovers), he finished with the most assists in a game by a Shocker in 30 years and brought Robert George’s name back in the minds of long-time WSU fans. Gilbert’s 12 assists against Tulane were a career-high and were the most since George’s 12 assists against Drake on Feb. 23, 1991. As a team, WSU logged a season-high 22 assists on 27 field goals.
On the receiving end of four of those assists was Trey Wade, who scored a career-high 23 points on 9-for-12 shooting, including 4-of-5 from long range. The senior entered shooting 38.5% from the field and 28.2% on three-pointers.
“That’s the Trey Wade I want to be,” Wade said. “That’s what I wanted to be coming into this year and I haven’t been that, but I’m consistent with my work and that’s what I continue to push and strive to be.”
Gilbert and Wade may have registered career-best performances, but WSU junior Dexter Dennis delivered the most impactful performance for the Shockers against Tulane.
In a return to his home state of Louisiana, Dennis notched a season-high 20 points, including four threes, and tied his career-high 13 of rebounds for his second double-double of the season. On top of that, Dennis was the main culprit for why Tulane leading scorer Jaylen Forbes, fresh off a 37-point performance in his last game, once again had a miserable shooting performance against the Shockers.
After doing most of the work to hold Forbes to 0-for-13 shooting in Wichita, Dennis once again was the primary defender on Forbes when he shot 1-for-9 on Wednesday. Forbes averaged better than 18 points per game against the nine other AAC teams; facing Dennis, the sharpshooter only averaged 7.0 points per game against WSU.
“I think Dexter Dennis the Defensive Player of the Year in the conference,” Brown said. “Dexter has played four or five guys this year who probably average 17 or more and held those guys to single-figures. He can defend at a high level. Not only did he defend well, but he was great on offense and rebounded at a high level. I’m so proud of him.”
For the first half of Wednesday’s game, it was difficult to believe WSU was coming off a 13-day layoff spurred once again by COVID-19 issues on other teams. The Shockers found just about any shot they was looking for against Tulane’s match-up zone, as they assisted on 15 of 19 baskets, shot 54% from the field, drilled eight three-pointers and scored 1.35 points per possession.
WSU led by 15 points in the game’s first 12 minutes, as a 16-2 run propelled it to a 28-13 lead. Gilbert had eight assists by halftime, as he shredded Tulane’s match-up zone by penetrating and using his creativity on dump-off passes to Wade or Morris Udeze (12 points, 10 rebounds) or on kick-out passes to the perimeter to manufacture wide-open looks for Dennis or Tyson Etienne (12 points, six assists).
When Tulane responded with an 11-2 run to draw within six points, WSU bombed away from deep. Wade, Etienne and Dennis all hit triples during an 11-2 run of its own to ultimately help build a 46-33 halftime lead. As a team, WSU topped its previous season-best by two triples on Wednesday with 13 three-pointers.
For a team that desperately needs to pad its defensive rebounding numbers, Tulane’s lack of interest chasing offensive rebounds was the perfect match to build confidence. WSU won the rebounding battle 39-32 and boarded out 81.3% (26 of 32) of its chances on the defensive end.
While WSU has excelled in beating opponents, shutting the door on them is something it has struggled with all season. Once again, the Shockers allowed an opponent to hang around in a game. The second half featured much more sloppy offensive possessions, as WSU shot 32%, committed seven turnovers and missed 11 of 22 free throws in the second half.
That allowed Tulane to stick around longer than it probably should have, as the Green Wave rallied from a 16-point deficit and came as close as five points in the second. It wasn’t pretty, but WSU improved to 11-0 this season when it has led with five minutes left in the second half.
“Right now, I’m just so excited about the win,” Brown said. “We’ll work on stuff tomorrow and watch the film. These teams in this conference they’re going to keep battling. This is a tough basketball league and anytime you come on the road, the other team is going to fight. We didn’t make our free throws, which hurt us and helped them get back in the game. So our next practice, we’ll probably shoot a bunch of free throws now.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2021 at 7:05 PM.
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