In the face of adversity, how Wichita State’s Tyson Etienne keeps perspective
Tyson Etienne has never been one to back down from adversity.
He’s overcome the odds his entire basketball career, which has led him to this moment in his third season with the Wichita State men’s basketball team.
After a stellar sophomore season, Etienne was named Co-Player of the Year in the American Athletic Conference and flirted with the NBA Draft this past summer. When he decided to return to WSU, the Shockers immediately became contenders again in the AAC with expectations of returning to the NCAA Tournament.
To say this season hasn’t gone to plan would be an understatement. Entering Wednesday’s 7 p.m. game against UCF at Koch Arena, WSU (9-7, 0-4 AAC) is mired in a nearly two-month-long slump. Etienne’s scoring average (14.9) remains high, but his shooting percentages — 35.1% from the field, 32% on three-pointers, 74% from the line are all career-lows — and efficiency — his offensive rating has fallen from 114.7 last season to 97.6 this season — have taken a significant dip.
Etienne is aware of the criticism of his play and his team’s performance to date, but he remains an optimist in the face of adversity, confident in his ways.
“I don’t look at adversity as failure, that’s why my confidence and my belief in myself and my teammates doesn’t sway,” Etienne told The Eagle. “Adversity is not a time to cower, it’s an opportunity to take a challenge head on and grow. Nobody would be who they are without going through tough times.
“I’m not in control of the how and when it will shift, but I know the tide is going to shift for us and that’s why I don’t hold my head, I don’t give up. Obviously it’s frustrating taking losses, but it’s all part of the journey. Everybody likes to say, ‘Trust the process,’ but you have to realize the process comes with valleys in it. You can’t just be saying trust the process, screaming praises when things are going well. You’ve got to be able to endure tough times, too.”
Tough times have certainly come, particularly in Wichita, where the Shockers are used to enjoying one of the best home-court advantages in college basketball at Koch Arena.
That hasn’t been the case this season, however, as WSU lost its fifth game at home on January 16 — the earliest that’s happened in nearly three decades.
During a 10-day break spurred by the majority of the team entering in and out of COVID-19 health and safety protocols last week, Etienne said there was no dramatic players-only meeting to try to snap the team out of its funk. He said the players were already having those conversations before the break happened.
“We were ready to go up to Temple and get our first win there last week,” Etienne said. “The conversations already happened prior to this little shutdown, so now it’s just about manifesting it onto the court. We’ve already said everything we need to say amongst ourselves, and to the coaches, now it’s just about going out there and playing a 40-minute game.”
Teammate Ricky Council IV echoed that sentiment on Tuesday.
“We just need that first win is all,” Council said. “I don’t feel like there’s nothing too crazy we need to change. We just got to play together and when stuff starts to fall together, then we’re going to start winning games. Winning solves everything. Everybody will feel a lot better and we will turn things around and be fine.”
Etienne said his two prior seasons at WSU have shown him both sides of how a team can handle adversity.
In his first season in Wichita, the Shockers started off 15-1 and ascended to top-20 in national rankings. When adversity struck, WSU crumbled, losing five of seven games at one point and finishing the season with a 23-8 record before the pandemic wiped out the postseason.
In his second season, WSU overcame a laundry list of distractions — coach Gregg Marshall resigning less than two weeks before the start of the season, a 1-2 start under interim coach Isaac Brown and a COVID-19 shutdown early in the season — to finish with a 16-6 record, including the program’s first AAC title and a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
“I’ve been on a team where we hit adversity and we pretty much crumbled and got saved by (the shutdown) so it didn’t really amount to anything,” Etienne said. “And I’ve been on a team where we went through immense adversity and we won a championship. I know the team I’ve got and the coaches we’ve got and we are not going to back down from adversity.”
As the player that headlines every WSU scouting report, Etienne has faced increased attention from defenses this season and dealt with more scrutiny as his efficiency numbers have dipped.
Several factors have played into that, namely the fact that WSU has struggled to make shots as a team this season. Without another scoring threat occupying the defense’s attention, most opposing teams have been able to focus on Etienne. WSU has struggled to produce clean looks for its star out of sets when he plays off the ball and the pick-and-roll game with Etienne handling the ball rarely features enough shooting gravity around him to give him space to operate.
The end result has been mostly contested dribble jumpers by Etienne, who is also guilty of pulling the trigger on a few too many of those looks early in the shot clock — perhaps out of frustration of the lack of clean looks.
When asked about his shot selection, Etienne said those tough shots are just the reality of being the top scoring threat, but acknowledged he is striving to do a better job at putting himself in a better situation to succeed moving forward.
“I just have to continue to be intentful with my shots and thinking about how I can get to my spots better when I do need to take tough shots because the reality of the situation is there are going to be times where I have to take them,” Etienne said. “But understanding when I need to take them and how I can get myself into a rhythm prior to having to shoot those higher-difficulty shots is something I’m working on. Can I get to the free throw line earlier in the game and have some rhythm seeing the basketball go through the rim? Can I maybe free myself up or have a play set up for me where I get a wide-open look and knock down a three early in the game?”
Even though Etienne is rarely on social media compared to his peers, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t see the criticism pouring in. Friends and family send him screenshots of comments and Etienne has learned to just laugh them off.
It’s a different kind of adversity he’s up against this time, a different battle, but one he feels comfortable facing all the same.
“I know where I’m going in the game of basketball, it comes with two sides of the coin,” Etienne said. “They’re going to love you whenever you’re up and they’re going to hate you whenever you’re down. You’ve just got to accept it and I’m adjusting to that. When I get to the NBA and continue my career, I know it’s going to be even worse.
“So for me, I don’t really pay attention to it because those people aren’t putting in the work like me and my teammates. They’re entitled to their opinion, but at the end of the day we’re the ones coming to Charles Koch Arena every single day and putting the work in. I can’t get swayed by everybody else’s opinions because then I would lose myself.”
.jpg)