How Wichita State basketball coach Isaac Brown handles criticism of team’s losses

Isaac Brown has only been the head coach of the Wichita State men’s basketball team for 40 games, spanning two seasons, but he’s already experienced the full gamut of being in charge of a proud program.

He was loved when he led the Shockers to an American Athletic Conference championship, which earned him a five-year, $6 million contract and the full-time job.

But high-level college basketball can be a fickle business, one that is always asking the question: What have you done for me lately? And lately, Wichita State has struggled. Any good will built from last season’s improbable title run has been forgotten less than a year later, replaced by mounting frustration about the team’s 1-5 start in conference play entering Tuesday’s 8 p.m. game against Tulsa at Koch Arena in a game broadcast on ESPNU.

Being around Division I basketball as an assistant for nearly two decades, Brown has seen head coaches receive their fair share of criticism. But going through it for the first time as a head coach has been a different experience for Brown now that he’s the one who is celebrated for wins and criticized for losses.

“It’s different as a head coach and you’re losing, it’s hard for me to walk out to the mailbox,” Brown said. “I try to wait until it’s dark outside. I don’t want to see anybody, I don’t want to talk to anybody.

“All I do is watch film to try to learn from my mistakes. I stay off social media. I don’t want to start listening to everything you see on social media. If I start listening to those guys, I’ll probably be sitting up in the stands one day.”

A season after winning 10 of 13 games decided by six points or less, including nine straight at one point, the Shockers are a pedestrian 5-5 this season in such games with their last three losses in AAC play coming by a combined six points.

Brown likes to reference the 2018-19 season, when Dexter Dennis and Morris Udeze were freshmen and the Shockers started 1-6 in conference play before winning 14 of their final 18 games to reach the NIT semifinals. A turnaround appeared less likely that season because WSU was losing by an average of 11.3 points during its 1-6 start, where as this team has had a chance to win down the stretch of every game but one during its 1-5 start.

Tuesday’s game is vital for WSU to regain its footing. A loss to rival Tulsa (7-12, 1-7 AAC) at home on a night where WSU plans on wearing retro MTXE uniforms would be devastating. Despite the slow start, Brown remains confident a turnaround is coming.

“If we were in these games getting blown out, I would think I need to get on the road and go recruiting and try to go find better players,” Brown said. “That hasn’t crossed my mind. We’ve got a good enough team to win, we’ve just got to correct our mistakes. I feel like we can win these games if we cut down on our mistakes, start making some wide-open shots and play 40 minutes instead of 36 minutes.”

Brown said whenever WSU loses, he can’t bring himself to watch another game — even the NFL playoffs this past weekend. Whether it’s in his home in west Wichita or his office at Koch Arena, Brown is obsessive watching film trying to find answers to lead WSU out of its rut.

“I want to know if there’s something I could have done differently in games and I try to correct it the next game,” Brown said. “I ask myself all the time, ‘Am I going hard enough in practice? Or am I going too hard in practice, so hard that these guys are fatigued in games?’ So I go back and watch film of a lot of practices.

“I tell the guys all the time that the film has got to sting. I go in and ask guys questions, ‘Why did you do this? Why did you do that? What did you learn from this?’ We do a lot of talking along with the film, then we go out in practice and make everything a little bit harder than in a game. Those guys always come out with a positive attitude, even when film is tough.”

When the season began, WSU had hopes of earning another at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament and repeating its AAC championship. With both of those goals already extinguished before the month of February, the season hasn’t gone the way anyone on the team envisioned.

But by all accounts, the players remain banded together, resolute in finding a way out of this hole.

“It’s so frustrating because I believe in these guys more than anything in my life,” said point guard Craig Porter after the Tulane loss. “I know what these guys are capable of and I know we’re going to get this done.”

Everyone is frustrated, but optimism is still abound within the program thanks to Tyson Etienne, the team’s most vocal leader.

“We can’t throw in the towel,” Etienne said in New Orleans. “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.”

Tulsa at Wichita State men’s basketball

Records: Tulsa 7-12, 1-7 AAC; WSU 10-8, 1-5 AAC

When: 8:02 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Koch Arena (10,506)

TV: ESPNU

Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM (Mike Kennedy & Dave Dahl)

KenPom says: WSU 72, Tulsa 64

Last meeting: 72-53 WSU win at Koch Arena on January 13, 2021

Projected starting lineups

Tulsa Golden Hurricane

Coach: Frank Haith, eighth season, 134-100

Wichita State Shockers

Coach: Isaac Brown, second season, 26-14

This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 2:36 PM.

Taylor Eldridge

The Wichita Eagle

316-268-6270

Wichita State athletics beat reporter. Bringing you closer to the Shockers you love and inside the sports you love to watch.