‘Got to grow up quick’: Wichita State basketball hopes to solve offensive issues at home
Offensive outages at inopportune times have plagued the Wichita State men’s basketball team this season.
The Shockers feature one of the best defenses in the country, yet enter Saturday’s 3 p.m. game against East Carolina at Koch Arena and streaming on ESPN+ with a mediocre 7-6 record because their offense is prone to rather lengthy droughts.
WSU’s most notorious quality once again flared up three days ago in Orlando, costing the Shockers a chance to steal a road win over UCF in the American Athletic Conference opener. WSU’s defense held UCF without a field goal for the final seven minutes, but failed to rally because its offense could muster only one field goal in its last 12 possessions, which spanned eight-plus minutes.
“You’ve got to grow up quick in this league,” WSU head coach Isaac Brown said. “This isn’t high school. This isn’t junior college. This isn’t lower-level basketball. You’ve got to be able to lock in for 40 minutes. If we can lock in for 40 minutes and start to value the basketball, we can start winning these basketball games.”
A dramatic cold streak can be pinpointed in nearly every loss for WSU this season.
In a 66-57 loss to Alcorn State, WSU had a seven-minute stretch without a field goal in both halves. Earlier this month against another SWAC team, Texas Southern, WSU nearly let a 16-point lead slip away because it made just a single field goal in a nearly nine-minute stretch in the second half.
The Shockers nearly completed a comeback against San Francisco in Kansas City, but fell 67-63 in part because they could only make one shot in a 12-possession stretch that spanned nearly nine minutes in the first half.
WSU led for almost the entire game at Kansas State, but lost 55-50 when the team made just one field goal in its final 14 possessions spanning the final 10 minutes of the game. Two weeks later, WSU lost to another Big 12 team in a 59-49 loss to Oklahoma State when it ended the final six minutes of the game without a field goal.
Even with these offensive deficiencies, WSU has had a chance to rally for a win down the stretch of all six of its losses because of its defense. Brown has found success sprinkling in a three-quarters press that morphs into a zone defense in the halfcourt, as WSU is playing nearly one-fourths of its defensive possessions in zone — the highest mark in the Brown era.
“They do a great job mixing their defenses and by doing that, it keeps you off-balance a lot of the time,” UCF coach Johnny Dawkins said. “When they’re in that zone, they’re very active. They’re long and they know their rotations well. They’re one of the best defensive teams in the nation and when you defend like they do, you’re always going to have a chance to win.”
If WSU is going to out-perform its projected eight-place finish in conference, the upcoming four-game stretch is vital. KenPom projects WSU as the favorite in every game, as the Shockers host East Carolina on Saturday, Cincinnati on Jan. 5 and Tulsa on Jan. 14 with a road trip to South Florida on Jan. 8.
Craig Porter (ankle) and Quincy Ballard (lower back) are expected to be game-time decisions for WSU on Saturday afternoon.
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