Wichita State basketball cures road woes with trip to Tulsa for first AAC away win
A trip to one of its oldest rivals was just what the Wichita State men’s basketball team needed to cure its road woes.
The Shockers waited until their final road trip of the season, but they finally secured their first road win of American Athletic Conference play and first in three months with a 72-62 victory over the Tulsa Golden Hurricane at the Reynolds Center on Wednesday night.
“It’s great to go on the road and get a win,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “We didn’t want to end the season not winning one on the road in conference.”
It was an important win not only to pick up WSU’s first AAC road win in six tries, but also to boost morale on the team following a three-game losing streak. Even if it sometimes looked like the ninth-best team playing the 10th-best team in the conference, the Shockers continued their dominance over Tulsa (9-19, 3-14 AAC) by winning for the ninth time in 10 games since joining the American.
The victory also gives WSU a plausible path to the No. 7 seed in the AAC tournament in Fort Worth next week. If Cincinnati loses at SMU on Thursday and WSU beats East Carolina at Koch Arena on Saturday, then the Shockers would have the No. 7 seed and likely rematch against Tulsa in the play-in round of the AAC tournament next Thursday in a 2 p.m. game with a win pitting them against the No. 2 seed in the quarterfinals, which will likely be SMU, a team WSU beat by 15 points earlier this season.
“March is a new season,” WSU guard Qua Grant said. “This is definitely a confidence-booster going into the last game of the season. We needed this to start building for the tournament.”
WSU certainly looked like new shooters in the first game in March, as one of the worst two-point shooting teams in the country made 56.8% of its two-pointers against Tulsa’s match-up zone — the highest mark in conference play and second-best accuracy on the season.
Tyson Etienne (game-high 18 points) was consistent knocking down mid-range jumpers and floaters, Morris Udeze (15 points, eight rebounds) delivered an array of strong finishes inside and Qua Grant (career-high 13 points) came off the bench to provide the spark with dazzling bursts and twisting finishes over Tulsa’s big men around the rim.
“It felt good to see those guys execute on offense,” Brown said. “It feels like we ran the offense. (Tulsa) played halfcourt defense and usually against a halfcourt team we can execute. Down the stretch, no matter what, we executed, everybody touched it, the ball moved side to side and I felt like we played great.”
It was a particularly impressive performance from Grant, whose 13 points were more than his previous eight games combined. He hadn’t scored more than eight points in a game since scoring 13 in an overtime loss to Arizona on Nov. 19 and was averaging just 3.9 points in 15.8 minutes per game.
For Wednesday night, at least, Grant looked more like the two-time Division II All-American player he was at West Texas A&M, using his burst to blow by his defender and his strength and athleticism to finish over and around taller defenders at the rim.
“That’s the Qua Grant we expected to see this year,” Brown said.
When starting point guard Craig Porter picked up two fouls in the first half, Grant provided a swing when he came off the bench and lifted WSU with nine points to stake the Shockers to a 38-29 halftime lead.
And when Tulsa trimmed WSU’s lead to 53-50 with 9:57 remaining in the second half, Grant was key in capping a 10-0 run with back-to-back layups to all but seal the road victory.
“It felt good,” Grant said of his breakout game. “I’ve been working hard, waiting for the opportunity and take advantage of it.”
WSU struggled to find an answer for Tulsa stretch forward Jeriah Horne (15 points, six rebounds, four assists), but turned Darien Jackson (15 points) into a scorer and held explosive guard Sam Griffin to just three points on 1-of-11 shooting. The Shockers dominated the rebounding battle, holding a 43-19 advantage, while grabbing 13 offensive rebounds and boarding out at a season-best 88.2% on the defensive end.
Even in its first road win since Dec. 1, WSU wasn’t without its head-scratching plays. Like scoring on its own basket when two Shockers tried to grab a rebound at its peak or failing to box out the free throw shooter or when a player once again stepped out of bounds at the end of a half for a turnover or even late in the game when the players on the court didn’t know it was a 1-and-1 free throw until Tulsa finally realized the rebound was live and sprinted up the floor.
But a lot of mistakes can be masked when a team makes 81.3% of its shots (13 of 16) during a seven-minute stretch like the Shockers did at the end of the first half, as they pulled away from a tight game to build the cushion they needed for victory.
“It was huge for us to go into a hostile territory coming down to Tulsa, which is always a tough place to play, and come out with the win,” Etienne said. “We stayed together when they made a run and that was really important and assuring for me to see our team stay together and play the way we did. We will definitely carry this into Saturday (against ECU).”
Wichita State 72, Tulsa 62 basketball box score
This story was originally published March 2, 2022 at 10:08 PM.
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