What went wrong for Wichita State basketball in Tulane road loss? Video shows issues
When Tyson Etienne buried his career-high seventh three-pointer several feet beyond the arc, right in front of his father, Max, and his godfather, Marcus Camby, seated in the front row of Tulane’s Fogelman Arena, the narrative was all but complete.
The American Athletic Conference Player of the Year had his swagger back. And maybe so did the Shockers, inching closer to their second straight win after an 0-4 start to conference play with a nine-point lead and 3:38 remaining in Saturday’s road game at third-place Tulane.
Etienne’s revival from beyond the arc had helped the Wichita State men’s basketball team erase a 15-point deficit and firmly put the Shockers in control late in the game.
All WSU needed was maybe another basket and a few defensive stands to secure a valuable road win that could serve as the spark for a mid-season turnaround.
Instead, the Shockers reverted back to the same troubling script that has plagued them since December: build a lead, then find a way to blow up. WSU went scoreless on its final six possessions and struggled to produce a stop, allowing Tulane to reel off a 10-0 run to escape with an improbable 67-66 win over Wichita State.
“We beat ourselves,” Etienne said, summarizing the feelings of everyone in WSU’s locker room. “It’s definitely frustrating knowing we had so many opportunities to put it away.”
It’s become a nightmarish habit this season for WSU (10-8, 1-5 AAC), which has blown a double-digit lead in a loss five times. The most mind-numbing have both come against Tulane, as the Shockers were somehow swept when they held a greater than 95% win probability in both games.
A season after WSU won 10 of 13 two-possession games, winning nine in a row at one point, the Shockers are a pedestrian 5-5 in such games this season, which feels worse because their last three losses have totaled six points.
“I felt like it was mostly self-inflicted damage that we did to ourselves,” WSU point guard Craig Porter said. “It’s stuff that’s avoidable. Sometimes you’ve got to think more as a high-IQ basketball player at this level and make sure we make the right plays. I know we’re capable of that, we’ve just got to understand that.”
For as much derision as WSU’s 19 turnovers received afterward, the truth is victory was still attainable with better defense. The Shockers were lights out for a 20-minute stretch where they held Tulane to just 18 points (for a remarkable 0.47 points per possession), but then suddenly couldn’t produce a stop when they needed to. The Green Wave scored points on 13 of their final 17 trips down the floor.
Perhaps fatigue played a role, but WSU’s end-game defense was sloppy: a defender caught ball watching, a missed box out and failure to secure a defensive rebound, failed communication on ball-screen coverage. All three mistakes led to fouls and free throws for Tulane in the game’s final three minutes.
But the more glaring issue was WSU’s inability once again to convert on offense down the stretch of a close game. To illustrate what went wrong for the Shockers in crunch time, The Eagle cut up game film to help add context and explain how things went awry once again for WSU in its five possessions immediately following Etienne’s triple in the game’s final three minutes.
Wichita State’s ball-screen offense comes up empty
Sequence: WSU breaks Tulane’s press and Dexter Dennis attempts an open corner three that misses, but Morris Udeze is there for the offensive rebound. Dennis actually has another chance to shoot an open three, but turns it down in favor of running clock with WSU clinging to a 66-60 lead. A high ball screen from Udeze is called for Craig Porter with Etienne rolling up on the wing, but the play breaks down and Dennis is left chucking a contested triple to beat the shot clock.
Analysis: WSU actually had a handful of success running its ball-screen offense against Tulane’s funky, match-up zone. In fact, Etienne burned three three-pointers out of WSU’s ball-screen offense in the second half alone.
But the play only worked when there was a threat of a roll to the basket by the screener, which strained Tulane’s shape-shifting defense and made the help defender choose between staying with Etienne on the perimeter or giving up a layup on the roll.
That half-second of hesitation by the defender to help on the roll was all Etienne needed because he spots up so deep beyond the arc, it made it impossible for the defender to recover in time to challenge two of his deep bombs, including the one that put WSU up nine with 3:38 to play.
But WSU failed to put Tulane’s defense in a predicament on this certain play, as there was no hard roll after the screen and the help-side defender stayed attached to Etienne rolling up on the wing.
The Shockers did well to run off 30 seconds of clock, but settling for a low-percentage shot was not ideal.
To be on or off the ball, that is the question
Sequence: After Tulane scored to trim WSU’s lead to 66-62, the Shockers once again drained the shot clock. Etienne took a late ball screen from Pleasant and kicked to the corner to an open Dennis, who tried to drive to the middle of the floor and ran over Tulane’s Jaylen Forbes for what was whistled as a charge with 2:03 remaining.
Analysis: The season-long question for the WSU coaching staff is how to deploy Etienne down the stretch of tight games.
It’s typical for coaches to turn the ball over to their star player late in games, entrusting them to make the right reads. And that’s been the case for most of this season for WSU, as Etienne has had the ball in his hands for a lot of crunch time.
But for the Shockers, it’s tempting to use Etienne and his sensational shooting gravity, which still exists despite his dip in shooting percentages this season, to the team’s benefit down the stretch of games.
It’s hard to catch live and it doesn’t show up in the box score as an assist for Etienne, but just his presence on the court creates so many openings for his teammates. There were a handful of times during the Tulane game where the defense was so concerned about where Etienne was, it opened gaps up for others to exploit and score baskets.
The difference when Etienne is the one on the ball was seen on this play in particular, as Tulane aggressively sends two defenders at him — willing to give up the short roll to Pleasant or the skip to Dennis, a 27% three-point shooter, in the corner.
Dennis is a bit unlucky, as the defender guesses right but is still moving his feet when Dennis barrels over him. The 50-50 call goes Tulane’s way, as WSU squanders another possession but runs off 26 seconds.
An old trick doesn’t work for the Shockers
Sequence: Clinging to a 66-63 lead in the final 90 seconds, WSU turns to a play it used twice to produce open looks for Etienne from three. But this time Tulane sniffs out the play and blows it up, which results in Etienne draining the clock before attempting a difficult, step-back triple that fails to hit iron with 1:16 remaining.
Analysis: While WSU relied mostly on its ball-screen offense against Tulane, the coaching staff did find a quick-hitter that seemed to work.
The play starts innocently enough with the point guard passing to Etienne on the wing, then Etienne returns it right back to the sender. It’s important for Etienne to sell it like it’s mindless ball movement, as he nonchalantly makes the pass and then looks like he is walking away.
But as soon as the point guard makes the same pass to the other wing, Etienne springs into action. Because Tulane is in a match-up zone, the point guard actually doesn’t go to screen the defender closest to Etienne. Instead, the point guard screens the defender right in front of him and Etienne zips behind them to launch a three-pointer.
The play depends on the point guard setting a solid screen and WSU executed it perfectly twice in the game, both times ending in an Etienne triple.
But when the Shockers tried to dial it up one last time, Tulane sniffed it out and point guard Craig Porter wasn’t able to put a body on the right defender to free up Etienne.
With Plan A taken away, WSU again went back with a high ball screen for Etienne late in the shot clock. As detailed above, WSU just doesn’t have the shooting gravity to space the floor for Etienne when he’s on the ball.
Tulane sent two defenders well past the three-point line to corral Etienne, gambling WSU couldn’t space the floor properly or make the right passes to unlock the 4-on-3 numbers advantage it had behind the top two defenders.
It was the right call by Tulane. Pleasant would’ve been better served finding a soft spot in the zone, rather than trying to set a ball screen with two defenders that high up on the floor. The screen proved ineffective, as Etienne was left to try to create his own shot, which ended up being a difficult, step-back three that failed to draw iron. Again, the only positive was WSU ran off 30 seconds of the clock again.
Should WSU have shot or ran clock?
Sequence: Tulane again split free throws at the line to trim WSU’s lead to 66-64 and the Green Wave slapped on a three-quarters court trap as the clock ticked down to the final 60 seconds. Etienne breaks the press and flips to Dennis, standing wide open in the corner, who pulls the trigger on a three with 19 seconds left on the shot clock that misses and Tulane rebounds with 48 seconds left.
Analysis: The WSU coaching staff put its trust in Dennis, a fourth-year player and the most experienced player on the roster, to make the right decision.
But did he?
If Dennis turns down the shot and WSU runs off most of the shot clock like it had been doing, which also was leading to low-percentage attempts, Tulane likely would have got the ball back with around 33 seconds left and been a little more restricted from there on out.
But what is also true is that WSU, given its late-game struggles, was not going to produce a better shot than an in-rhythm corner three-pointer with no defender within 15 feet.
Dennis probably feels like he makes that shot more times than not, but let’s say Dennis, who hasn’t had a great shooting season to date, is expected to make that shot four times out of 10, which still translates to an expected 1.2 points per shot.
Is pulling the trigger on a shot of that value worth sacrificing the 19 extra seconds? If Dennis makes it, WSU almost certainly prevails.
But he didn’t and the debate lives on.
Turnovers doom Wichita State in another loss
Sequence: WSU finally gets the stop it was looking for and Tulane will have to foul with only a five-second difference on the shot clock and game clock and the Shockers still holding a 66-64 lead. But the unthinkable happens as soon as WSU cracks the pressure and before Tulane can foul: Ricky Council takes a pass down the left sideline and without a defender in front of him, takes a step back and his right heel barely touches the sideline for a costly out-of-bounds turnover with 26 seconds left.
Analysis: WSU coach Isaac Brown was livid with his team 15 minutes following the final whistle, still in disbelief of 19 turnovers — six on strips, six on bad passes, three on charges, a pair of shot-clock violations, a travel and Council’s step out of bounds, perhaps the most painful.
“We’ve got to grow up in a hurry,” Brown said. “We’ve gotta stop beating ourselves with turnovers. You’ve got to respect your opponent and take care of the basketball. We didn’t value the basketball today and we had 19 turnovers versus a zone.”
After Monzy Jackson gave WSU its largest lead of the game, 55-42, the Shockers promptly committed seven turnovers in their final 17 possessions — 41% of their chances to extend their lead in the final 10 minutes vanished without even an attempt at points.
It’s been a troubling theme this season for WSU, which is now No. 224 in the country in turnover percentage after posting a top-30 rate nationally last season.
After coming away with a rare defensive stand, all WSU had to do was play keep away from Tulane. With less than 30 seconds on the game clock and only five seconds separation between the shot clock, the Green Wave were going to have to foul — and foul a lot because they only had three fouls at the time and were four away from sending WSU to the foul line.
It was a hectic situation with the crowd roaring and Tulane still trying to trap and force a turnover when Etienne evaded pressure and flipped the ball to Council in the corner. Upon catching the ball, Council went into attack mode, which is why he took a step backward, to propel himself toward the basket.
There wasn’t a definitive replay angle that showed Council’s foot touching the sideline. In fact, it almost appears the back of his heel floats just over the line. But upon review, it was close enough where the call on the floor was going to be the one upheld.
WSU’s final mistake proved fatal, as Tulane capitalized on yet another chance to take the lead with Jalen Cook drawing a foul on Etienne and making three straight free throws to seal the victory for Tulane and the latest heartbreak for the Shockers.
“If we just take care of the basketball the last four minutes, we win the game,” Brown said. “I preach to the guys all the time to take care of the basketball and not be loose with it. We just had too many unforced turnovers and you can’t do that.”
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 6:02 AM.
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