The 10 plays from North Texas game that illustrate Wichita State basketball problems
Even without a particularly sharp effort, the Wichita State men’s basketball team was a little more than halfway home to its most impressive offensive performance of the season in last Saturday’s game against North Texas.
After 22 minutes of play, the Shockers held a 39-29 lead and had scored 1.30 points per possession — well above their season average of 0.98 points per possession — against a pretty stingy North Texas defense that entered the game ranked top-60 nationally in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency.
No one could have predicted what came next.
Wichita State went nearly 13 straight minutes without scoring a single point, giving up an improbable 20-0 run in the process to turn a 10-point lead into an eventual 10-point defeat. The Shockers missed 11 straight shots and committed 10 turnovers during that span, including one stretch where they turned the ball over seven times in eight possessions.
On Tuesday, WSU coach Isaac Brown spoke about the Shockers’ need to “play the right way” on offense. After playing the worst half of offensive basketball in perhaps the program’s recent history, here’s a closer look at how North Texas’ no-middle defense befuddled Wichita State and 10 examples of plays where the team has to do better moving forward.
1. A look at North Texas’ no-middle defensive philosophies
After watching the success Chris Beard had with his “no-middle” defense at Texas Tech in recent seasons, North Texas coach Grant McCasland followed suit and has adopted the no-middle principles in Denton.
The no-middle defense is exactly what it sounds like: a defense focused on keeping the ball out of the middle of the floor. There are three key fundamentals North Texas used to disrupt WSU:
1. Switch every screen except for the center. This is a common approach by defenses equipped with the guards and forwards capable of guarding their yard. By doing this, North Texas was able to negate all of WSU’s dribble hand-offs and pin-down screens. North Texas sometimes sacrificed size, but made up for it by being scrappy.
2. Ice every ball screen involving the center. A fundamental concept in a no-middle defense is to “ice” every ball screen on one side of the court, using the baseline and sideline as extra defenders. To “ice” a ball screen means the on-ball defender attempts to force the ball handler to dribble down the sideline where the big-man defender is waiting to corral them for essentially a double team.
3. On-point help defense and back-side rotations. To effectively “ice” ball screens takes all five defenders locked in and operating in synchronization. If the ball was on one side of the court, North Texas was ultra-aggressive in helping off the weak-side corner to plant a defender underneath the basket. Whenever WSU did manage to penetrate the middle, North Texas’ entire defense collapsed to form a wall — forcing the Shockers to act decisively and make perimeter shots to beat them. Spoiler alert: WSU did neither the second half.
2. Morris Udeze again struggled with double teams in the post
After a slow start to the season, Udeze has quickly rounded into form and become arguably WSU’s most consistent source of efficient offense. And the junior delivered another efficient shooting performance against North Texas, scoring a team-high 17 points on nine shots — continuing a stretch where he has averaged 15.8 points on 63% shooting the last six games.
While Udeze may have scored efficiently, North Texas reminded him he still has a glaring weakness to his game: facing double-teams in the post. Doubling the post is referred to as “monster” in coach speak, popularized by Houston coach Kelvin Sampson — another in-state coach that McCasland may have borrowed a page in the playbook from. In fact, the “Monster” double post could very well be North Texas’ fourth fundamental to its defensive plan against WSU.
North Texas excelled with the “Monster” move, forcing Udeze into a turnover on three of the four times it sent a double team to the post. After averaging 4.0 turnovers per game through the first six games, Udeze had only committed three turnovers in his last four games before relapsing to his old turnover-prone ways and committing five turnovers against North Texas.
No doubt Udeze must be better in his decision-making under pressure, but WSU can also help alleviate the pressure with better spacing to make it more difficult for the three help defenders to guard the four other players. Brown mentioned that WSU’s guards need to be better at recognizing the double team and cutting down the middle to draw in the help defense and leave a skip pass open for Udeze to make.
The one time Udeze handled the “Monster” defense, he felt the second defender and dribbled back out to hand off to point guard Craig Porter, which turned into a side ball screen that fed Udeze the ball with a slight advantage in the paint. This caused North Texas’ defense to collapse and leave Joe Pleasant wide open underneath the basket, but WSU was unable to convert the lay-up. North Texas’ help defense did well to rotate, but Udeze and Pleasant have to find a way to make the play above an easy two points moving forward.
3. Wichita State struggled making the skip pass
Give North Texas a lot of credit: some of its defensive rotations were superb. On the few occasions where Wichita State was able to crack North Texas’ defense, the help side was almost always there to jump over and prevent the lay-up.
The Shockers had this scenario a handful of times against North Texas: the ball handler beat their defender and forced the weak-side help to rotate all the way over to stop the drive, leaving the weak-side corner wide open.
The first clip above shows the one time WSU had success finding the weak-side corner and attacking the defense, but too many times WSU failed to cash in on this advantage. Sometimes North Texas’ help-side defense was excellent in scrambling and covering the corner to take away the easy pass. Sometimes WSU’s ball handler failed to recognize where the open shooter was. And sometimes the pass was simply off target just enough to allow North Texas’ scrambling defense to recover.
WSU coach Isaac Brown often harps on his team’s need to “drive to kick” and plays like these perfectly exemplifies where the Shockers must improve.
4. The difference switching made in Wichita State’s success
Why was North Texas switching all screens not involving the center such a big deal? There was no better example than the first two WSU possessions of the second half when it ran the same play.
On the first time down, North Texas did not switch an off-ball screen involving Tyson Etienne and Dexter Dennis near the block. Etienne set a solid screen, which allowed Dennis to break free underneath the goal for what could have been a lay-up. Instead, the defense collapsed and Dennis kicked out to Etienne, who was lost in the mix on the perimeter, for a wide-open three that he drilled.
WSU tested North Texas with the same exact play the next time down, except this time North Texas switched the off-ball screen involving Etienne and Dennis. Now a defender was waiting right where Dennis cut and another was ready to follow Etienne out to the three-point line. Without the first look available, WSU center Morris Udeze made a rash decision with the ball and tried to force a pass that wasn’t there — a sign of things to come for the Shockers.
5. How switching bottled up Tyson Etienne
Give Etienne credit: he is arguably the best off-ball screen setter on WSU, willing to put his entire body into screens on centers.
Etienne knows if he sets an effective screen for a teammate, he’s either going to give them a wide-open shot or be free to come off a screen of his own for a wide-open shot. Usually that’s the way it works when he sets the kind of screen he did midway through the second half when he blew up North Texas’ 6-foot-10 center Abou Ousmane so well that his defender had to come off to help.
That left Etienne streaking wide open to the top of the key with no defender on him as he prepared to curl off a screen from Dexter Dennis for what could have been an open three-pointer against a less-aware defense. But not against North Texas.
North Texas wasn’t afraid to let Etienne roam free making his cuts inside the three-point arc, as the team consistently communicated with each other, which allowed the defender guarding the WSU player setting the screen for Etienne — Dennis’ defender in this case — to meet Etienne at the catch to take away the shot.
What seemed like a WSU advantage was easily negated, something that surely frustrated Etienne over the course of the game. Instead of an open catch-and-shoot three, Etienne tried to drive against a collapsed defense and missed a tough, in-between range floater — a great example of how North Texas’ defense took away the great shots and forced WSU into shots it didn’t prefer.
6. WSU centers couldn’t capitalize on the switches
A troubling trend developing for WSU is that defenses are beginning to feel confident that it can switch every screen when freshman center Kenny Pohto is on the court.
That’s because defenses aren’t worried about Pohto posting up and taking advantage of smaller guards. And for good reason: Pohto has only attempted four post-ups all season, per Synergy, as he spends most of his time floating around the perimeter.
There was one possession midway through the second half when Pohto (6 foot 11, 235 pounds) was being guarded by North Texas point guard Tylor Perry (5 foot 11, 180 pounds) and WSU/Pohto didn’t know how to attack it. He tried to post Perry up, but was fronted by Perry with the lob pass being taken away by the back-side help defense. WSU never did unlock the right angle to feed Pohto the ball, as North Texas got away with guarding him with much smaller players for a handful of possessions he was on the court.
When a 6-foot-1 guard attempted to defend WSU starting center Morris Udeze late in the second half, the Shockers finally unlocked a way to take advantage by properly spreading the court and finding the right angle from the top of the key with point guard Craig Porter feeding a lob over the top to Udeze for a basket and a foul to end WSU’s scoreless streak. It was too little, too late for the Shockers.
7. WSU couldn’t take advantage of the slip screen
While Tyson Etienne delivered a rather underwhelming shooting performance (nine points on 12 shots), he once again provided numerous openings for his teammates by his work off the ball.
A good example came midway through the second half when point guard Qua Grant passed to the wing and cut through the lane looking like he was going to set a pin-down screen for Etienne, who sold it well with a quick stutter step like he was cutting to the top of the key that completely shook his defender before darting sideways to the left corner to come off a side screen set by Dexter Dennis instead.
It was a perfect example of the type of pressure Etienne’s shooting gravity applies to defenses. Because his original cut shook the original defender so bad, another defender had to switch onto Etienne and desperately chased him to the corner. Meanwhile, Dennis’ defender came off of Dennis to try to prevent the pass to Etienne in the corner.
Dennis began to slip to the basket for what seemed destined to be a free dunk, but North Texas defender Tylor Perry got away with a tug of Dennis to prevent him from making a clean break toward the basket and Ricky Council IV misread the cut and fired a pass too out in front of Dennis.
You could feel the frustration mount after this play, as a great play call by Brown and great execution by the players was negated by a poor final moment that turned what should have been an easy two points for WSU into another lost possession.
8. How North Texas formed a wall against Tyson Etienne
Another clear part in North Texas’ game plan against WSU was that it was going to be ultra aggressive in ball screens when Etienne was the ball handler. Almost every time Etienne came off a ball screen, two North Texas defenders were collapsing on him with a third defender helping off their man to form a three-man wall to prevent Etienne from driving.
Sometimes Etienne took the bait and pulled up for a contested, mid-range jumper, but there were times where the WSU star made the correct read and passed to an open teammate. Etienne finished with only one assist, but it wasn’t for lack of potential-assist passes.
There were two times in this action alone where Etienne recognized the wall built up to stop him and kicked to an open teammate. The first time Dexter Dennis couldn’t make an open three in the corner and the second time Monzy Jackson turned down a three to drive and miss another uncomfortable, in-between floater.
9. WSU guards couldn’t cash in on advantages
When WSU was in desperation mode attempting a comeback, it switched from the center setting the ball screen for Tyson Etienne to wing Dexter Dennis setting the screen. Instead of passing to Udeze on the perimeter, where he’s not much of a threat, WSU figured it could be more dangerous if Dennis was the one catching the pass.
Sure enough, WSU got the look it wanted when Etienne drew the double team on the screen, twirled and swung a pass to Dennis open at the top of the key. He could have pulled the trigger on a three, but insted attacked the late close-out and dribbled to the middle to collapse North Texas’ defense. Dennis had three choices: pull up for the jumper, dump a pass down to Udeze in the dunker’s spot or kick to the corner to an open Craig Porter. Instead, Dennis lost control of his dribble for a turnover.
A fluke turnover like that isn’t going to happen often, so the bigger point is that these are the scenarios where WSU’s guards must be better going forward. The Shockers have to start cashing in more when they gain the advantage going to the basket, replacing the out-of-control shots and passes around the basket with decisive kick-outs to open shooters in the corner, on-target passes to the dunker’s spot or just stronger takes to the rim to draw fouls.
10. WSU couldn’t capitalize on drawing the second defender
It wasn’t a good game from point guard Qua Grant, as WSU was outscored by 11 points in his 18 minutes on the floor and he failed to record a point or assist. But there is potential for Grant to build on, despite his final numbers.
What he gives WSU is a ball handler capable of beating a single defender off the dribble, which can be a valuable asset against stingy defenses like North Texas. In fact, there were multiple times where Grant was able to blow past his defender and collapse the defense. He should have had an assist if Kenny Pohto didn’t miss an open dunk and Grant made two other passes to teammates that could have easily gone for assists.
Beating the man in front of him isn’t the problem for Grant. The area where the former Division II All-American is having the biggest issue is the decision-making once he gets in the lane. Should he kick out to an open shooter? Should he pull up for the floater over the big man? Should he try to finish a lay-up? Should he dump it off to the dunker’s spot? These are all split-second decisions Grant has to make and lately he hasn’t been making the right one.
That’s not to say Grant isn’t capable of making the right decision, rather it’s an example of the transition he has to make adjusting to Division I athleticism. If things on the court begin to slow down for Grant and he starts executing precisely in those moments, he could be a problem for opponents later this season.
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