Here’s one statistic that doomed Wichita State men’s basketball in Houston road loss
A single entry in the box score told the story of how the Wichita State men’s basketball team was beat by Houston.
Points off turnovers: Houston 26, Wichita State 10.
Even though the Shockers committed just one more turnover than the 12th-ranked Cougars, the disparity between how often the two teams capitalized on each other’s mistakes was the difference in the opinion of WSU’s side following a 76-66 loss to Houston at the Fertitta Center last Saturday.
“They definitely made us pay every time we turned the ball over,” WSU junior Dexter Dennis said. “It seemed like they capitalized every time we made a mistake and that was a big part of them winning the game.”
It was a rather remarkable display from Houston to score 1.86 points per possession following a WSU turnover, mostly because the Cougars scored just four of those points as a direct result of a turnover.
That was hardly consolation for the Shockers because the most important turnover of the game proved to be of the “atomic bomb” variety, as Tyson Etienne’s pass to Craig Porter on the wing was picked off by Houston’s Jamal Shead and taken for a basket and foul at the other end. The demoralizing turnover, which occurred on the first pass of the possession, halted all momentum gained by WSU during a 9-0 run that had trimmed Houston’s lead to 65-59 with four minutes still remaining.
“I thought we had too many careless turnovers,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “We just didn’t do a good job of taking care of the basketball.”
The bittersweet truth for Wichita State is that it actually protected the ball better than most teams do against Houston, as its 14 turnovers — or 20.9% turnover rate — was well below Houston’s average of forcing turnovers on more than 25% of possessions.
And outside of two mistakes that led to a pair of Houston layups in transition, Wichita State was able to retreat and force the Cougars to attack its defense in a half-court setting following the other 12 turnovers. That’s what made Houston’s precision even more devastating, as the Cougars scored on nine of those 12 possessions following a WSU turnover.
Simply put, almost every time WSU made itself vulnerable, Houston made the Shockers pay — even when it had to work for it.
Compounding the issue for WSU was that it was failing to capitalize at all on Houston turnovers. In fact, the Shockers came up empty on their first seven possessions (with five ending in turnovers of their own) following a Houston turnover. WSU managed to cash in on points off turnovers late in the game, but by that point it was too late.
“We’ve got veteran guys and those guys aren’t ever going to quit,” Brown said. “They’re going to come to practice and try to get better every day. We’ve got to cut down on the mistakes. But our locker room is still good. We’ll be ready to go next game. We’ve just got to continue to get better.”
Another troubling column in the box score for the Shockers was second chance-points, where they were out-scored by Houston 19-7.
WSU actually played solid first-shot defense against Houston, which shot 42.3% from the field and scored 0.85 points per possession on its first chance at the basket. But Houston did serious damage on the extra possessions gained from its 17 offensive rebounds, as the Cougars made 58.3% of their second-chance shots and scored 1.12 points per possession.
“We’re a top-five offensive rebounding team in the country. That’s part of our offense,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “Sometimes having a safety blanket alleviates the fear of not having a great shooting night.”
Just like with possessions following turnovers, WSU failed to come anywhere close to matching Houston’s efficiency following offensive rebounds. The Shockers grabbed 13 offensive rebounds of their own, but produced just 0.64 points per possession on their second chances.
Losing to Memphis and Houston, likely the two most talented teams in the American Athletic Conference, isn’t necessarily concerning, but WSU’s 0-2 start to conference play certainly increases the urgency for a bounce-back performance in Wednesday’s game against Tulane at Koch Arena.
“I don’t think anybody in the locker room is happy. I don’t think any of the coaches are happy,” Dennis said. “Even though we played two great teams, we’re playing to win, no matter who we play. We lost the first two, so now we’ve got to find a way to string together some victories.”
The late second-half push to trim Houston’s lead with the potential of making it a one-possession game down the stretch was more encouraging for WSU than the 18-point loss to Memphis on its home floor. But the defending conference champions aren’t interested in feeling better about losses.
They know they need to start racking up wins, especially after losing its last four games against top-100 competition. There is still time for Wichita State to turn around its season, but the spark must happen soon.
“There’s no panic,” Jackson said. “We know what we’re capable of and we’re just going to have to push each other every day and overcome all adversity. We’re not listening to the naysayers, the people who are saying we’re not this and we’re not that. We know at the end of the day, we’re all we got. We just have to continue to push each other and just get the job done.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
.jpg)