Need for speed: Shocker Madness shows how Wichita State men’s basketball wants to play
Playing fast might be the new normal for the Wichita State men’s basketball team.
A preview of what could come this season played out during the 10-minute, intrasquad scrimmage to conclude Shocker Madness on Tuesday night, as both WSU teams put on a fast-paced, free-flowing show filled with a constant stream of crowd-pleasing dunks.
Defense was largely considered optional, mostly because the players had just finished a two-hour practice before the event. If not played in front of around 2,000 fans at Koch Arena, the scrimmage could have easily been mistaken for a Sunday morning pick-up game at the Steve Clark YMCA on campus.
When the real games roll around, which is less than a month now, the Shockers will of course play with a different level of intensity.
But the urgency to push the ball in transition and fast breaks ending in alley oops? Those are things that Wichita State wants to remain the same when it opens its season on Tuesday, Nov. 9 against Jacksonville State at Koch Arena.
“We’ve got to play fast,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “I keep telling our basketball team, ‘In order to be a good offensive team, you’ve got to push the ball in transition.’ You don’t want to go up against a set defense all the time. So that’s what we’ve been trying to do in practice: push the ball on makes and misses.”
Playing fast is not something that has been associated with WSU for a very long time. The Shockers have not ranked in the top-100 of adjusted tempo since KenPom started tracking the stat in the 2001-02 season. That’s two straight decades of WSU playing at an average or below-average pace compared to the rest of college basketball.
In recent history, the 2019-20 Shockers came the closest to cracking the top-100 when they ranked No. 101 in the country with an adjusted tempo of 69.5 possessions per game — slightly more than one above the national average. But in Brown’s first season as head coach, WSU came crawling back down to an adjusted tempo of 67.0 possessions per game, good for No. 234 nation-wide and one less possession per game of the national average.
WSU’s transition opportunities also tell a similar story, according to Synergy’s advanced tracking. The Shockers had 15% of their offensive possessions end in transition last season, per Synergy, which ranked smack dab in the middle of the country at No. 189.
The Shockers believe they have their most athletic team in years and all indications from the lead-up to this season are that they are committed to playing faster to capitalize on what they believe will be an advantage.
“We’re just an athletic team,” said WSU freshman wing Ricky Council IV, arguably the most athletic play-maker on the team. “I think we’re going to be overall exciting. I think the 10 minutes we played gave (fans) a little preview of what they’re going to see.”
Some of the fast-break plays made in the yellow team’s 22-21 win over the black team will not be replicable for the Shockers once the season starts. There were times when one team would score and the other team would grab it out of the net, make one pass ahead and Council or Dexter Dennis were soaring freely to the basket for a dunk.
But there was one play in particular that felt like it could be a preview of things to come.
It started with Joe Pleasant, a 6-foot-8 junior forward transfer from Abilene Christian, snatching a rebound and quickly outletting to guard Tyson Etienne, who pushed the ball upcourt and swung a cross-court pass to Qua Grant that scrambled the back-pedaling defense in transition. As a result, Pleasant, who was trailing the play, was left uncovered at the top of the key and another quick swing pass from Grant led to a swished three-pointer.
Of course, this play happened during a meaningless scrimmage with little defensive effort. No doubt the intensity and timing will look different during the season, but the concept — pushing the tempo and quick passing to scramble defenses in transition — is something that could carry over for the Shockers.
“Our athleticism (stands out),” Brown said. “We’ve got a lot of guys who can get out and run and jump and can handle the ball. In practice, we do this 30-second drill where you get up and down the court five times in 30 seconds. Those guys have been doing a tremendous job. We’re trying to put pressure on the other team’s defense.”
The American has become known in recent years as a grit-and-grind conference, one where trying to score in the half-court against set defenses is a struggle. Teams like Houston, Memphis, Cincinnati and Tulsa are known to make life difficult on opponents who are left trying to score consistently with half-court sets.
WSU will try to limit the number of times it has to go against a set defense by running at every available opportunity — not only after live-ball turnovers and missed shots, but sometimes even on made shots.
The Shockers have a wealth of strong and quick guards who can lead the fast break in Etienne, Grant, Craig Porter and Chaunce Jenkins, as well as athletic freaks such as Council, Dennis and Jackson who can run the floor with them for potential lobs.
“You can win games if you can push the ball in transition and get easy baskets,” Brown said. “With those three guys running the floor and getting us easy baskets, that’s going to help you win. You don’t want to go against a set defense every time because other teams scout you. Any time you can get fast break points, that really helps your team.”
The Shockers have the personnel, and now the green light from their coach, to play fast and produce highlight-reel plays in transition this season.
“We didn’t really throw too many lobs last year, so I think we’re going to get the lob action going this year,” Council said. “That’s all I did in high school. Getting a rebound, pushing it, me running the wing and going up for a lob. That’s going to be really exciting for me and the fans. I can’t wait. It’s going to be a lot of fun to watch.”
This story was originally published October 13, 2021 at 6:20 AM.
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