150 seconds of bliss: How Wichita State’s defense forced five shot clock violations
It’s not unusual for the Wichita State men’s basketball team to force a shot clock violation with its defense playing in front of its home fans at Koch Arena.
In fact, the Shockers had forced a shot clock violation in both of their first two games this season. They would have felt great if they could have forced two in the same game.
No one could have foreseen the bizarre twist that would occur Tuesday night in Wichita State’s 65-51 win over Tarleton State.
The Shockers forced not one, not two, not three, not four… but five shot clock violations — and all in the first half.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that in my 25 years of coaching,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said.
WSU was embarrassed last game by the amount of lay-ups it allowed to South Alabama. In the two days of practice prior to Tuesday’s game, Brown harped on his team to return to its defensive principles — namely the help defender one pass away digging down and swiping at the ball to make it difficult for ball handlers driving to the basket to reach their destination.
The renewed commitment was evident on Tarleton State’s second possession of the game, which ended in a shot clock violation because Joe Pleasant followed his coach’s orders and poked at the ball on the drive and managed to jar it loose late in the shot clock.
“They swing the game when you can do that,” Brown said of shot clock violations. “Without a doubt, it definitely gives us energy to know we can go down and get a stop. Those were big-time plays to get five of them in a game.”
Brown gave credit to assistant coach Billy Kennedy on preparing a great scouting report and to the players for executing it. WSU was determined to clog up driving lanes and wanted to switch all ball screens to keep Tarleton State in front.
In watching the full 150 seconds of the five possessions that ended in shot clock violations, the Shockers executed every last detail of their game plan to prevent dribble penetration.
Upon review, Tarleton State dribbled the ball 94 times and passed it 27 times during those five possessions. Only 10 of those dribbles came inside the three-point, each time cut off by a WSU defender walling up. None of the 27 passes were completed inside the three-point arc. Simply put, WSU never allowed Tarleton State to be dangerous for 30 straight seconds.
“Just not paying attention to what’s going on,” Tarleton State coach Billy Gillispie said in his post-game radio interview. “It goes back to discipline, I’ll leave it at that. Just not very smart basketball.”
During one stretch late in the first half, WSU’s defense forced Tarleton State to come up empty on 15 of 16 trips down the floor, including one spurt where the Shockers forced eight turnovers in an 11-possession span.
Two of those were shot clock violations, which the players wear like a badge of honor. WSU forced Tarleton State into 20 turnovers and a season-worst 30.4 turnover rate.
“Did you see the fans when that happened?” WSU junior Morris Udeze said. “It’s crazy, man.”
“It turns me up,” WSU sophomore Monzy Jackson added. “I want to thank the fans for that. Without that energy, we couldn’t get it. It was loud tonight and we needed that and I thank them for that.”
But WSU’s best defensive possession of the night didn’t end in a shot clock violation, although it did lead to a turnover with 3:57 to play with WSU trying to protect an 11-point lead. The possession featured everything Brown could possibly want in his defense: relentless pursuit, timely digging to force kick-outs, fluid switching and defenders moving their feet to keep the ball in front.
The play begins with Tarleton State point guard Shakur Daniel driving baseline to set up leading scorer Montre’ Gipson coming off a double screen and curling his way to the basket. Dexter Dennis is trailing on the play when Gipson catches, but Qua Grant correctly comes off Daniel to force him to kick back out to Daniel in the corner. Dennis smartly switches off and covers for Grant in the corner.
Daniel tries to drive middle on the switch, but Joe Pleasant clogs up the driving lane with a well-timed stunt from the top of the key. Tarleton State is once again forced to kick out to the player Pleasant just vacated, but once again Dennis sees the pass coming and doesn’t miss one beat in switching onto his third target of the possession.
Tarleton State takes one dribble, but Chaunce Jenkins digs down to force another kick-out pass. This time, Jenkins is quick enough to recover and actually beats Tahj Small to the middle of the floor and forces him into a wild spin move. Not only that, but Pleasant stunts one more time and causes Small to lose control of the ball, which flies straight into the hands of Udeze and kick-starts a WSU fast break headed the other way.
Playing defense like that is hard and chaotic. But in this 20-second sequence, WSU made it look as smooth as it could possibly be.
“If you stay in the gaps, you get a lot of shot clock violations and force them to get a lot of turnovers,” Udeze said. “Help the helper. Keep helping your teammate out and it worked out in our favor.”
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