‘Either sink or swim’: Wichita State basketball faces pivotal moment early in its season
Losing is never fun, but losing two straight games with second-half leads takes a different kind of mental toll on a team.
That pain was evident watching members of the Wichita State men’s basketball team file out of the locker room at Bramlage Coliseum one by one late Saturday evening, distraught after the Shockers allowed another late lead to slip away in a 55-50 loss to in-state rival Kansas State.
If Jaykwon Walton doesn’t slip in Kansas City… If Craig Porter makes the buzzer-beating floater in Wichita… If Shammah Scott finishes the fast break in Manhattan… How much different would WSU’s season look right now?
In a way, it seems cruel for such a fine line to separate the Shockers (4-4) and their current state of mediocrity from something greater. Then again, they know their own miscues have led them to their current predicament.
Porter, the team’s senior leader, knows the only direction for Wichita State is forward.
“We’re just trying to stay positive and stay together as a team,” said Porter, tasked with bringing along 12 newcomers this season. “We’ve got a whole new team, so everything is new to everybody. You can either sink or you can swim. I feel like we’re swimming and we’re headed in the right direction, but the loss, it definitely stings.”
In its last three losses, WSU has had a total of five possessions in the final minute with the score within three points: three have ended in turnovers, another ended with two missed free throws and the only shot attempt was an air ball.
Last Tuesday, WSU led for nearly 16 minutes of the second half against Missouri, only for turnovers and missed free throws to play a role in squandering a 10-point lead in the final five minutes of regulation in what became an overtime loss. Four days later, WSU was ahead for 14-plus minutes in the second half against K-State but made just one field goal in the final 10 minutes and ended the game with three straight turnovers.
“We’ve got to learn how to win basketball games,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “We’ve got to learn how to close out those games with a minute or two left in a game. We’ve got to find a way to win.”
With starting center Kenny Pohto (illness) and shooting guard Jaron Pierre Jr. (coaches’ decision) on the bench and Walton, the team’s do-everything forward, injured, the Shockers had to rely on inexperienced players like Scott, Jalen Ricks and Quincy Ballard, three players with very little Division 1 experience, to perform in crunch time.
But there are no asterisks next to losses to designate extenuating circumstances, only losses.
“It was very frustrating because there were a lot of plays we could have made and a lot of things we could have corrected during the game,” Scott said. “We have to learn from this, actually learn from it. I feel similar things happened against Missouri where we were up and we blew the game. So we need to really learn from this.”
WSU’s offense is an easy place to begin with the criticism after the Shockers could only muster 18 second-half points in the loss. WSU made less than 26% of its field goals and 1 of 12 three-pointers in the second half, while the Shockers sputtered down the stretch, producing just five points on their final 14 possessions.
When asked afterward if he felt like the offense grew too stagnant in the second half, Brown pushed back on the notion of that being the source of WSU’s problems.
“I didn’t think it was stagnant at all,” Brown said. “I thought we got what we wanted. We had a bunch of wide-open looks in the second half and we didn’t get them to go. When you go 1 of 12 from the three-point line, at times it might look stagnant, but those are the same shots we got in the first half and the same plays we called in the first half. We just have to make shots in the end.”
It is true WSU continued to run through set plays the final 10 minutes, but the team’s execution of the details — screening, cutting, passing — left something to be desired. It too often felt like WSU’s primary objective was to drain as much of the shot clock as possible, rather than generate a quality shot.
The Shockers struggle to manufacture open looks early and too often defer to calling for a high ball screen and relying on a guard to win the 1-on-1 battle on a switch late in the shot clock. Paired with a season-low two transition possessions in the second half at K-State, it’s not hard to understand how WSU plays at one of the slowest paces (No. 337) in college basketball.
“I take the blame for that,” said Porter, the team’s primary ball handler. “I feel like once we get a lead and it’s late in the game, we try to play keep-away a little bit and that’s kind of a problem. Once you start playing keep-away, then you start to lose that aggression and the momentum starts to shift. I feel like if we keep pushing the pace and keep the same tempo we have the whole game, then we can find a way to get the win.”
Brown has seized the opportunity with so many newcomers to the program to introduce new wrinkles and new plays to WSU’s playbook in his third season as head coach.
But the growing pains are obvious, as the players are still trying to grasp how and when to execute the details.
“I think coach (Brown) is doing a great job drawing up the plays, it’s on us to execute them on the court,” Scott said. “There was some confusion and we just have to communicate better. It’s pretty much on us the players. Coach is doing the right thing. He’s putting us in the positions we need to be, but it’s up to us to make the plays.”
Five years have passed since the last time WSU played an aesthetically pleasing brand of basketball, but the Shockers have still managed to win at a high level in the meantime with a grit-and-grind style.
Porter believes WSU can find success this season by following that same path. The Shockers currently rank No. 49 in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom.com, and are holding opponents to under 37% shooting from the field.
“Defense is going to be our identity and it’s always been our identity,” Porter said. “Ever since this group came together, we knew defense and rebounding and giving that extra effort game after game were going to be the reasons we win.”
While losses in three of the last four games have been disappointing for WSU, the Shockers checked in at No. 99 in the NET’s first ranking — the fourth-highest of any team in the American Athletic Conference.
The metrics show WSU isn’t as far away from where it wants to be as it feels in the aftermath of the losses.
“I still believe our guys are getting better and better and I know it doesn’t show it in the win column,” Brown said. “We’ve got some high-character guys that we trust and believe in and they’ll keep fighting. This loss ain’t going to beat them. We don’t like losing basketball games around here, so we’ve just got to continue to get better in practice.”
This story was originally published December 6, 2022 at 10:44 AM.
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