Wichita State basketball rallies from, then blows double-digit lead in Tulane loss
How many gut punches can one team take?
That’s the question the Wichita State men’s basketball team was left asking after erasing a 15-point lead, building a 13-point lead, then blowing it in the final seconds of a devastating 67-66 loss to Tulane at Fogelman Arena on Saturday afternoon.
Minutes after the loss that dropped the team to 10-8 overall and 1-5 in American Athletic Conference play, a WSU player was keeled over outside of the locker room with a towel covering his face in anguish.
How could this happen again? The third time in conference (and fifth overall) the Shockers have allowed a double-digit lead to slip away.
“Everybody’s emotions are running high right now, being up by that much with that little time... we just threw the game away,” WSU point guard Craig Porter said. “That hurts your heart as a basketball player, especially with the season we’ve been having.
The Shockers only have themselves to blame after squandering their second double-digit lead to Tulane (9-9, 6-3 AAC) in the last three weeks.
WSU committed 19 turnovers, many of them unforced, including an egregious one when Ricky Council IV stepped out of bounds on the sideline with no defender around him trying to protect a two-point lead with under 30 seconds left. Instead of running more clock and eventually shooting free throws, WSU yielded the ball back without even a chance to extend its lead.
After Tyson Etienne (team-high 21 points on seven three-pointers) staked WSU to a 66-57 lead with 3:39 remaining, the Shockers came up empty on their final six possessions.
“We’ve got to grow up in a hurry,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “We can’t be loose with the basketball. You’ve got to respect your opponent and sometimes we don’t and we’re having to pay for it. When we don’t value the basketball at the end of the game, this kind of stuff can happen to you.”
Given yet another chance, Tulane capitalized when Jalen Cook (23 points) was fouled by Etienne on a three-point attempt with 6.6 seconds left. Etienne felt like Cook kicked his legs out, which he did, but replays appear to show Etienne making contact with Cook’s shooting arm before.
Trailing by two, Cook calmly sank all three free throws to win it for the Green Wave after Etienne’s desperation three failed to draw iron.
“I stopped his initial drive and made him get into a step-back gather, which is what you want to do to guys shooting a game-winner like that,” Etienne said. “I felt like he kicked me in my leg, but the ref had a different perspective. I can’t control what they call. I definitely feel like he kicked me, but he got the call and made some big shots to win the game.”
It concluded a series of bizarre mistakes by the Shockers in the final four minutes of the game to fail to protect a nine-point lead.
On offense, WSU looked more concerned with running clock off than trying to score — and sometimes it failed to even do that, as turnovers and a quick shot in transition cut a handful of WSU possessions short. On defense, the Shockers once again failed to produce stops when they needed them.
Afterward, Tulane coach Ron Hunter gave credit to a rowdy crowd of a little more than 2,000 fans for Tulane’s improbable rally down the stretch.
“When you get a crowd like that on top of you, we have the benefit of a small arena and it gets loud in here,” Hunter said. “All of a sudden you can’t hear your teammates, you can’t see what coach is doing and you step out of bounds or you take a quick shot when you shouldn’t. I thought the crowd kind of sped them up.
“If this game is played in Wichita, we probably don’t win this game.”
Hunter has himself to thank for the rowdy crowd, which is beginning to fall behind the third-year coach building a winner in New Orleans. He even bought breakfast, including Cafe Du Monde’s beignets, for everyone in attendance for Saturday’s 11 a.m. tip.
“I’m getting ready to go pay for it right now,” Hunter said with a laugh. “It’s gonna cost me a lost of money.”
For WSU, it spoiled a truly remarkable comeback that featured some of the best basketball played by the team this season.
Cook helped bury WSU in an early 24-9 hole, but the Shockers would recover to take a 31-30 halftime lead and have a 20-minute stretch where the Shockers outscored Tulane 46-18 to build a 13-point lead midway through the second half.
“It’s so frustrating because I believe in these guys more than anything in my life,” said Porter, who had 15 points, five rebounds and four assists. “I know what these guys are capable of and I know we’re going to get this done.”
WSU shot 45.6% from the field, including 12 three-pointers, but only attempted three free throws for the game — a point of frustration for Brown. In comparison, Tulane shot 39% from the field but attempted 22 free throws.
“I don’t think it was the zone,” Brown said. “We were driving the basketball at the rim too. I think they just got the calls.”
Regardless of how the team lost, it lost, and Etienne said it will require a special kind of resiliency to rebound.
“We can’t throw in the towel,” Etienne said. “We don’t know how long this adversity is going to last, but it’s not going to last forever.
“There’s something on the other side for us, but we have to fight in order to get to the other side. If we stop fighting, we’ll never know what’s there. I know nobody in that locker room has a give-up attitude, so we’re going to keep fighting and find out what’s on the other side for us. It could be extremely special and my faith is in that.”
This story was originally published January 29, 2022 at 1:11 PM.
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