Wichita State basketball smothers SMU for momentum-building, 15-point win at home
It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.
At least that’s the path the Wichita State men’s basketball team hopes it is on, as the Shockers took another step in burying memories of a bad start with one of their finest games of the season in a 72-57 win over SMU on Saturday evening at Koch Arena with a national audience watching.
After a disappointing 0-4 start to American Athletic Conference play, WSU (12-8, 3-5 AAC) has won its last three games at Koch Arena and just pummeled the second-best team in the conference by 15 points. It was just the second loss for SMU (16-5, 7-2 AAC) in its last 15 games.
This was the kind of Shocker basketball everyone had been waiting on.
“Everything happens exactly how it’s supposed to,” said WSU guard Tyson Etienne, who scored 20 points. “We went through what we went through, now we fight. Now it’s time to win.
“That’s what Shocker basketball has always been about.”
It was the sixth straight AAC game where the Shockers built a double-digit lead on their opponent and while a 3-3 record in those games may be disappointing, they have won back-to-back games for the first time since mid-December and finished their last two games in that position with double-digit wins.
Given its recent history, there were some nervy moments for WSU in the second half, like when SMU trimmed a 21-point deficit to 10 with 7:43 remaining. But the fact is the Shockers never trailed, led for all but 30 seconds of the game, and held a double-digit lead on SMU for the final 30 minutes of the game.
“It’s a big thing for us responding the way we did against the second-best team in the conference record-wise,” said WSU point guard Craig Porter, who had four points, a team-high eight rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks. “We had more grit today. We had more enthusiasm. We’re doing our jobs and everything is going to work out the way we want it to.”
Wichita State’s defense, spearheaded once again by Dexter Dennis, delivered one of its best performances of the season by holding an offense ranked top-40 nationally in efficiency to a season-low in points. SMU looked out of sorts for most of the game, committing 17 turnovers (for a season-high 24.7 turnover rate) and making just five three-pointers on 25% accuracy (a season-low mark) to pump out a season-worst 0.84 points per possession.
Dennis was crucial to that in his work bottling up AAC Player of the Year candidate Kendric Davis, a 6-foot dynamo who generated most of SMU’s high-powered offense with his averages of 20 points and five assists per game. Matched up against Dennis for most of the game, Davis finished with a season-low eight points on 1-of-7 shooting to go with five assists and four turnovers.
“They had us scattered,” SMU coach Tim Jankovich said in his post-game radio interview. “It was not good offense on our part and that was disappointing. That was very disappointing.
“Tonight was not our night and it was definitely their night and they had a lot to do with that.”
It was once again freshman Ricky Council IV who rescued the Shockers when they absolutely needed points down the stretch. After SMU trimmed the deficit to 57-47 behind its pressure defense and aided by a six-minute scoring drought for WSU, Council scored the next eight points to stretch the lead back to 15. He even punctuated the victory with a steal and highlight-reel windmill dunk in the final minute of the game.
Council scored 20 points off the bench, making 6 of 9 shots from the field and all seven of his free throws to go along with seven rebounds, two assists and three steals. WSU also made 18 of 20 free throws in the game, including 9 of 10 in the final six minutes to help close out the game.
“He’s fearless,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said of Council. “We’ve talked to him more about winning games at the end of games. We’ve got to win them. You can’t be out there just hooping. He did a great job tonight and played within the system and he defended at a high level and didn’t turn it over.”
“I felt comfortable pretty the whole time,” Council said. “You can’t feel pressure with it. The more you think about it, the more it’s going to feel like pressure. My teammates believe in me, so I just have to finish.”
Wichita State broke open the game on a defining 18-2 run midway through the first half, spearheaded mostly by the bench unit led by Council, Monzy Jackson (six points, four rebounds) and Kenny Pohto (seven points) that brought the Shockers so much momentum that Jankovich had to call two timeouts to try to stop it.
Jackson’s energy was contagious during the six-minute spurt, peaking when he swished a three and followed it up with a tenacious effort on the glass for a put-back. Shocker fans delivered one of their bigger roars of the season when Council and Dennis rode the wave of momentum and drilled back-to-back three-pointers to put the Shockers up 32-13 in the first half.
After blowing five double-digit leads at Koch Arena this season, Etienne sensed the importance of winning on Saturday in regards to turning around the season. He said before the game he even called it the “Super Bowl.”
“It felt like there was that much on the line for our season at this important juncture,” said Etienne, who added winning on the road is the next step with a road trip to UCF coming up on Tuesday.
“When we go on the road, we still have to have that good energy and go down and do what we need to do. I’m just excited to continue to go on. I don’t care where we play at. I’ll play outside.”
After witnessing first-hand the level of play on Saturday, count Jankovich among the believers that Wichita State can turn its season around.
“If they keep playing like that, their record is going to be a whole lot different at the end of the year,” Jankovich said. “Their talent is good at every position, for gosh sakes. They’re incredibly talented and they have a whole bunch of guys that can make shots and drive the ball and guard tough. You name it, they’ve got all the parts. That’s why they were in the NCAA tournament last year. This team could certainly make a run.”
This story was originally published February 5, 2022 at 7:15 PM.
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