Wichita State Shockers men’s basketball pulls away for 19-point win over Alcorn State
Given a second chance to bury an outmatched opponent at Koch Arena, the Wichita State men’s basketball team once again came away with mixed results.
The 82-63 win over Alcorn State on Tuesday was expected, as the Shockers won their 14th straight game at Koch Arena and improved to 8-2 this season.
But the thorough victory the WSU was in search of once again escaped it, as WSU allowed a 20-point underdog to trim its lead to seven points midway through the second half and delivered an uncharacteristic sloppy defensive performance against the No. 334-ranked offense on KenPom.
“It’s more of an us thing as players, we’ve got to stay focused,” WSU junior point guard Craig Porter said. “Once we get that lead, we start to get a little childish and we tend to take our foot off the gas pedal. That’s one thing we’re definitely going to correct. Once we get that full 40 minutes going, it’s going to be real scary for people.”
Outside of that lapse, which resulted in a 12-2 Alcorn State run, there was plenty for the Shockers to feel encouraged about.
WSU junior center Morris Udeze continued his hot streak with his fifth straight game in double-figure scoring with a team-high 15 points to go along with six rebounds and and two blocks. During his five-game scoring binge, Udeze is averaging 15.6 points on 63% shooting.
“It’s the same story,” Udeze said. “My guy CP (Porter) is finding me all the time and we just have good guard play and coach is running plays for me. I guess I’m hot right now.”
Udeze wasn’t the only center who played well, as true freshman Kenny Pohto delivered the best game of his young career — career-highs in points (14), rebounds (eight) and steals (three) in 17 minutes off the bench. Udeze and his 6-foot-11 Swedish understudy combined for 29 points and 14 rebounds.
“He’s a dog,” Udeze said of Pohto. “He’s going to be good in these coming years.”
Another positive came with the Shockers finishing with a season-high 20 assists, as Porter logged six of them with Qua Grant (four), Dexter Dennis (three), Tyson Etienne (three) and Ricky Council IV (three) all chipping in with helpers. WSU also finished with a season-best 18 points in transition, its second straight strong performance with fast breaks after they had become a glaring issue through the first eight games of the season.
WSU capitalized on its size advantage, grabbing 19 offensive rebounds for a season-best 50% offensive rebounding rate and outrebounding Alcorn State by 13. Pohto grabbed five of those offensive rebounds, which helped lead to 19 second-chance points for the Shockers.
“I’m the tallest guy on the court, so I just try to do what I’m supposed to do and get the rebounds over the little boys,” Pohto said. “The scout was to crash the boards, so that’s what I did.”
WSU, which wore its black uniforms at home because Alcorn State’s road uniforms were damaged by a hurricane earlier this year, looked like it was well on its way to a rout when it built a 17-point lead in the first half.
But the Shockers failed to sustain their high level of play, falling victim to a nearly four-minute drought without a field goal combined with some sloppy defensive rotations. Add it all up an WSU went from looking like it was about to push its lead past 20 points to facing some nervy moments when Oddyst Walker drained a three-pointer to cut the Shockers’ lead to 55-48 with still more than 13 minutes to play.
“That’s always concerning and we need to cut it out before we play North Texas (on Saturday),” WSU coach Isaac Brown said.
“I think we stopped making shots on offense and it affected our defense. I keep telling the team, ‘Making shots on offense cannot affect your defense.’ Sometimes your defense is your best offense and we’ve got to do a better job of scoring the basketball and we’ve got to continue to defend at a high level.”
WSU, of course, recovered with an immediate 9-2 run to double its lead, but that might not always be the case when the Shockers face a step-up in competition.
It was encouraging to see the bench unit led by Grant (eight points), Chaunce Jenkins, Council (12 points and five rebounds), Monzy Jackson (two blocks) and Pohto rip off an 8-0 run to extend WSU’s lead to 19 points late in the second half, which earned a standing ovation from the crowd of 8,002 at Koch Arena. WSU finished with 40 bench points.
“We got a lot of guys on the bench that can really score the basketball,” Brown said. “When you got guys on the bench that can score it and are used to playing big minutes it helps because there’s going to be some games in conference where our starters are going to get in foul trouble. So we’re going to need some good minutes coming off the bench.”
“Every day in practice we compete against each other, so we know every position is deep for us,” Porter said. “We know we have two guys at every position who can contribute and play a lot of minutes, so we kind of expect this.”
Even with some careless mistakes that led to 12 turnovers and more cold shooting from the outside (6 of 24 on three-pointers), WSU still managed to shoot 46.3% from the field, its second-best mark of the season, and score a season-best 1.21 points per possession.
“It’s kind of hard when you’re beating a team and then we slack off a little bit,” Udeze said. “Once we find a way to step on a team’s neck, like Tyson says all the time, once we get that down, we’re going to be straight.”
With his three-pointer on Tuesday, Etienne became the fastest Shocker to 150 career three-pointers by hitting the milestone in his 62nd game — seven faster than previous record-holder Landry Shamet.
After playing two straight overmatched opponents at Koch Arena, WSU will have a step up in competition on Saturday when North Texas (6-3) comes to Wichita on a four-game winning streak.
“The last time we played a Conference USA team in the NCAA Tournament, we lost to Marshall,” Brown said. “We’re going to have to be ready to go. North Texas won an NCAA Tournament game last year, beating the team that was ranked No. 1 in the country this year, Purdue, so we’ve got to be ready to go. They’re a very talented team and well-coached.”
This story was originally published December 14, 2021 at 9:00 PM.
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