Memphis hands Wichita State basketball worst Koch Arena game loss in two decades
It was a sobering start to the new year for the Wichita State men’s basketball team.
Saturday started with Wichita State eager to open its American Athletic Conference title defense and ended in embarrassment on national television with Memphis handing the Shockers their worst loss at Koch Arena in nearly two decades in an 82-64 trouncing.
Memphis coach Penny Hardaway has now won five of six games against WSU, as the Shockers suffered their worst loss at Koch Arena since a 85-67 loss to Indiana State in Mark Turgeon’s first season on January 27, 2001.
“All we can do is battle back,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “Preseason, Memphis was said to be one of the best teams in the country and they played like it (Saturday). All we can do is learn from it. They were the better team. We didn’t come to play.”
Wichita State (9-4, 0-1 AAC) trailed by as many as 28 points in the second half, as it looked like a team coming off a 10-day break on both ends of the court. It was total domination by a Memphis (7-5, 1-1 AAC) team that looked more like the top-10 team it was hyped up to be before the season, rather than the team that had lost five of six games before Saturday.
The Shockers registered their worst performances on the offensive and defensive end in the same game. The only thing colder than WSU’s offense — a season-worst 29.5% from the field and 7-of-33 on three-pointers — was the 11-degree temperature outside Koch Arena. And the normally-stingy defense by WSU was nowhere to be found, as Memphis scored 49 points in the first half and piled up 48 points in the paint, made 63.6% of its two-pointers and scored 1.08 points per possession — the first team to crack 1 PPP against WSU this season — for the game.
“Our defense wasn’t there,” said WSU junior Dexter Dennis, who had 16 points and five rebounds. “They pretty much got what they wanted at any given time.”
“They didn’t feel us,” Brown said. “Any time you allow a team to get comfortable in your building and they start making shots, they get confidence.”
Memphis played without two of its key players in Alex Lomax and Emoni Bates, but played as well as it has all season with freshman center Jalen Duren (14 points, six rebounds) and senior forward DeAndre Williams (14 points, seven rebounds, four assists, three steals) back in the lineup after missing Wednesday’s loss at Tulane due to COVID-19 protocol.
“(Wichita State) is a tough team, you know how hard it is to win here,” Hardaway said. “It’s always going to be a battle here, no matter what, because they always play hard. So I don’t ever get comfortable coming here. I think that’s what makes us play hard is we know if we don’t, we’re going to get blown out. You’ve got to play when you come here.”
Not shooting well is nothing new to WSU, which has the second-most wins (21) in the country shooting under 40% from the field in the last four seasons.
But the Shockers were unable to overcome their cold shooting on Saturday because the defense they normally depend on to keep them in games was overwhelmed by Memphis’ size, athleticism and length. And the bench unit which is usually a strength for WSU was nearly doubled up, 33-17, by Memphis, which was led by a career-high 15 points off the bench by freshman Josh Minott.
Memphis also effectively bottled up WSU center Morris Udeze, who had averaged 15.9 points on 63% shooting in his last seven games, but left Saturday’s game with just four points on 1-of-4 shooting.
“We’ve been known to win games despite not shooting the basketball well because our defense is usually on point and it wasn’t on point (Saturday),” said WSU star Tyson Etienne, who scored a game-high 17 points on 4-of-11 shooting. “I credit the loss more on the defensive side. We had too many mental lapses. I know I had mental lapses. So it was a defensive thing that really lost us the game. Obviously we need to start shooting the ball better, which we will, but defense is something we’ve always hung our hat on and we didn’t do that today.”
WSU never could piece together a run in the first 30 minutes of the game because it couldn’t string enough baskets together and when it did score, it never followed it with a stop at the other end.
The Shockers failed to capitalize when they were able to rack up 14 fouls on Memphis in the first half, including two early ones on Duren that forced the future NBA Draft lottery pick to sit for the final 11-plus minutes. Instead of taking advantage of the minutes with Duren on the bench, WSU allowed Memphis to more than double its lead.
Dennis provided brief hope when a steal and layup trimmed Memphis’ lead to 40-34 with 3:32 to play before halftime. But then the Shockers came up empty on their final eight possessions of the half, allowing Memphis to score nine unanswered points to push its halftime advantage to 15.
Any hope of a comeback was almost immediately dashed when Memphis ripped off another 9-0 run early in the second half to extend its lead to 60-36 by the first media timeout.
With Memphis’ bigs protecting the rim, the Shockers were left chucking three-pointers to try to jump-start a comeback. The shots never fell, as the 26 missed three-pointers was a season-high for a regulation game this season.
“When you go 7 for 33, it’s hard to win basketball games,” Brown said. “You’ve got to make shots.. If they’re going big, we’ve got to be able to spread the floor and make shots. I think their size and athleticism bothered our shooters.”
Life in the AAC doesn’t get any easier for the Shockers, which will take a week off before returning for another nationally-televised Saturday morning game on CBS at No. 12-ranked Houston, which is the preseason favorite to win the conference.
This story was originally published January 1, 2022 at 1:12 PM.
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