Respect, revenge and a paycheck: How SWAC’s Alcorn State upset Wichita State basketball
The yelling could be heard from the hallways in the bowels of Koch Arena.
Periodically, the locker room door would swing open and the roar of pure jubilation from the Alcorn State men’s basketball team would escape and pierce the ears of those passing by.
Koch Arena was supposed to be a safe haven for Wichita State, a place where the Shockers had dispatched 50 of their last 52 November opponents in the last two decades.
Alcorn State was supposed to be a tune-up, a “buy” game against a team from the SWAC, the lowest-rated conference in America, where WSU would shell out a nice check in exchange for a monotonous win.
But hardly anything that was supposed to happen came to fruition on Saturday, a day that will live on in infamy at Wichita State after the Shockers were outhustled, outcoached and outplayed in a 66-57 loss to Alcorn State.
Alcorn State played like the favorites for 40 minutes on the court, then celebrated like the underdogs in the locker room.
To the Braves, the experience was priceless. To the Shockers, the embarrassment will cost them a $70,000 check required to arrive in Lorman, Miss., within the next 60 days.
“I’m not worried about the check,” Alcorn State coach Landon Bussie laughed. “I’m worried about the ‘W.’”
In the next room over, the Alcorn State players were still mobbing Trevin Wade, their hero for scoring a game-high 14 points, but also for returning to his former school, claiming victory and showing the Shockers and their fans exactly what he could do in the process.
In a twist of fate — Wade sat out last season as a transfer, then sat out the season-opener this year due to injury — the 5-foot-11 dynamo guard played his first regular-season game since leaving Wichita State following the 2020-21 championship season at Koch Arena on Saturday.
“I’ve been looking forward to this game ever since the schedule came out,” Wade said. “I don’t think I slept at all last night. I probably haven’t slept all trip. I’ve been so hyped up about this game. This one meant a lot to me.”
Alcorn State fed off that passion and the Braves, who KenPom.com rated as the No. 327 team in the country beforehand, played with a mixture of swagger, vigor and aggression.
Wichita State head coach Isaac Brown pleaded with his players to take the challenge on Saturday seriously and yet the Shockers, who entered as 17.5-point favorites, still delivered a performance lacking emotion, urgency or purpose.
The program that spends more than $4.5 million annually played like they didn’t want to be there; the program that spends just over $500,000 annually played like there was no tomorrow. KenPom.com rated Alcorn State’s win over WSU as the fourth-largest upset in college basketball this season.
“We didn’t respect our opponent,” WSU sophomore center Kenny Pohto said flatly. “The whole week (of practice) was just not really good. Everyone was going like half-speed, so of course that follows us to the game because you practice for the game, you practice how you play, and we practiced bad.”
Perhaps even more stunning than the sheer loss for Wichita State was to the degree the Shockers were picked apart on their home court.
Outside of a 14-0 run by WSU during a five-minute span late in the first half, Alcorn State beat the Shockers by 23 points, 66-43, in the other 35 minutes of the game with superb offensive efficiency (1.22 points per possession) and defensive efficiency (WSU scored just 0.81 points per possession).
What separated the two teams on Saturday was simple: The Braves hit tough shots late in the shot clock, while the Shockers failed to convert their open ones.
Alcorn State’s defense collapsed the lane and dared WSU to make them pay. The Shockers responded by shooting 17% on their three-pointers, including a miserable 2-for-15 performance on wide-open, catch-and-shoot triples, according to The Eagle’s film review.
“I doubt you’ll ever win with (that kind of shooting performance),” WSU star guard Craig Porter said. “We were getting a lot of good shots, we just have to make those. Once we started missing, the defense can help in and make chaos because then they’re just begging us to shoot. You live and die by the three…”
The same film review also revealed Alcorn State shot 59% (10 of 17) in the final eight seconds of the shot clock and outscored WSU 28-7 when the pressure was on the most.
“I’m telling you, these teams in the SWAC can play,” said Bussie, Alcorn State’s coach. “This is good for SWAC basketball and this is good for Alcorn State. I’m just excited that my guys got out there and competed and played hard. That’s all I ask them to do is get out there and fight.”
Brown couldn’t say the same about his team after WSU suffered its worst home loss in the KenPom era, which dates back to 2002, and probably since a 1992 loss at Levitt Arena to a St. Peter’s (N.J.) team that went on to finish 8-21 and dead-last in the MAAC.
Alcorn State didn’t start a player taller than 6-foot-6, but Wichita State — armed with 6-foot-11 and 7-foot centers — failed to capitalize on its significant size advantage in the rebounding battle, which was slightly won by Alcorn State.
“The film will sting,” Brown said. “We didn’t play hard. They were tougher than us tonight. That’s the thing that’s most disappointing to me.”
That dejection was shared by his players, which made for a somber atmosphere outside of the WSU locker room with the players quietly dispersing for what is sure to be a reflective weekend.
Just two games into the season, the team with 12 newcomers already feels like it has reached a crossroads in its season entering Thursday’s road game at Richmond, a 2022 NCAA Tournament team.
“We can either take the punch and get knocked down or take the punch and fight back and show what we can do,” Porter said.
Just down the hallway, 20 minutes following the final buzzer, the water-soaked celebration of Alcorn State raged on.
In the next room over, Bussie radiated pride but not satisfaction. He can’t speak for all of his players, but to the coach Saturday’s events were supposed to happen.
“If we’re locked in and we’re competing and we’re playing hard, I think we have a chance to win against every team on our schedule,” Bussie said. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, it just matters what we do. As you can tell, I’m very confident in my basketball team.”
This story was originally published November 13, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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