‘We didn’t respect our opponent’: Wichita State basketball leader vows changes after upset loss
If it’s true you play like you practice, then the stunning loss to Alcorn State on Saturday should become less shocking to the Wichita State men’s basketball team.
According to players on the team, the warning signs were clearly there in hindsight following a 66-57 loss to the 17.5-point underdogs at Koch Arena.
The problem wasn’t that WSU had a lackadaisical shootaround on Saturday morning or one bad practice in the week leading up to the game. The problem was the entire preparation for Alcorn State was poor.
“Honestly, the whole week we kind of practiced bad,” WSU senior leader Craig Porter said. “The game started last week in our eyes and I feel like we lost it from day one. We had no energy at shootaround. Everybody was just kind of jogging around, lackadaisical, thinking, ‘We got this in the bag.’”
Although Alcorn State won the regular-season SWAC championship last season, the Braves were pegged as the No. 327 team in the country by KenPom.com before Saturday’s game.
WSU was 50-2 at Koch Arena in November games the last two decades because it easily dispatched teams like Alcorn State in tune-up performances for tougher competition to come.
Sophomore Kenny Pohto came out and outright admitted Wichita State’s players looked past Alcorn State on the schedule.
“We didn’t respect our opponent,” Pohto said. “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.”
Hearing that will be a letdown for head coach Isaac Brown, who stressed the entire week to his players not to take Alcorn State lightly. After Grambling State, a SWAC team picked to finish lower than Alcorn State this season, took down Colorado on the road the night before WSU’s game, Brown made sure his players knew their opponent on Saturday was capable of an upset if they didn’t play well.
Porter confirmed Brown pleaded with the players not to take the challenge lightly before the game. The warning, however, fell on deaf ears.
“You could see it, they looked more hungry,” Porter added. “They deserved it today. They played better than we did.”
Wichita State had a size advantage at every position on the floor, yet lost the rebounding battle to Alcorn State. The Shockers also chose to continue to clang away from the outside in a 17% three-point shooting performance rather than show patience and work the ball inside for a higher-percentage look.
Outside of a 14-0 run during a five-minute stretch late in the first half, WSU was outscored by 23 points in the other 35 minutes of the game.
For a program that has staked its brand on ‘Play Angry,’ the effort level to corral rebounds, secure loose balls and play disciplined defense in Saturday’s game was embarrassing by the high standards set before them.
“It looked like we were fatigued,” Brown said. “They beat us to all of the loose balls. They got all of the 50-50 balls. They hit timely shots. They made timely free throws. Give them the credit, they did a tremendous job.”
When pressed again, Brown admitted the “film will sting” when the group watches together on Monday.
“We didn’t play hard,” Brown continued. “They played harder than us tonight. They were tougher than us tonight. That’s the thing that’s most disappointing to me.”
Perhaps just as troubling as the loss was finding out after the fact that WSU had strung together three straight bad practices leading up to the game.
A bad practice is bound to happen over the course of a five-month season, maybe even two in a row. But three?
As the longest-tenured player in the program, Porter shouldered the blame after the loss.
“As a group, I feel like I failed them as a leader,” said Porter, who has been tasked with helping 12 newcomers acclimate to the program.
“I feel like I’m being a little too nice, especially in practice. I’m being more buddy-buddy with people instead of being more like a coach and a mentor, like I should be. I just feel like I should be more strict, more vocal. Just this week alone, I didn’t get on guys and I could see them doing some of the little stuff they probably shouldn’t be doing and I didn’t necessarily say nothing. I feel like that plays a big role because then you get comfortable and you pull on that leash a little bit more and more and eventually there’s no leash.”
When relayed what his star point guard had said earlier, Brown defended Porter’s leadership.
“I put all of that on me,” Brown said. “Craig has been a fantastic leader and he has control of that locker room. I told those guys, ‘Don’t point fingers, I’ll take all of the (blame) for this loss.’ We’ve got to continue to try to get better and it starts in practice. We’ve got to be able to defend better, we’ve got to be able to shoot better and sometimes it takes a loss like this in order for you to see it. This loss really stings, but we’ve got to get better. It’s all we can do.”
How the Shockers respond in practice this week could prove to be pivotal to how the rest of the season plays out.
WSU will face three challenging opponents away from home over the next three games: a road game at Richmond on Thursday and then two games in two days in Kansas City against Grand Canyon and either San Francisco or Northern Iowa. All three opponents are much more highly rated than Alcorn State, and WSU won’t be playing at Koch Arena.
Porter said he was confident the team would “bounce back in a great direction” and Brown said it’s more important now than ever for the team to stay together through the adversity.
“When you lose a game like this, you can’t start to point fingers,” Brown said. “You can’t start listening to people outside of our program. You’ve got to stay together and all of us have got to look in the mirror and say, ‘We’ve got to get better.’ I told them I’ve got to get better, everyone in this room has got to get better.
“Two things can happen when you take a loss like this: either you get better and go out and compete or you can take a loss like that and start pointing fingers. I think our guys are high-character guy. And I know they’re not going to quit and they’re going to come to practice ready to go and move forward from this game and get ready for a good Richmond team.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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