Video breakdown of what kept Wichita State basketball from pulling off Houston upset
Not much separated the Wichita State men’s basketball team from its highest-ranked home victory in 56 years in Thursday’s loss to No. 3 Houston.
The Shockers led for nearly 23 minutes, including the majority of the second half, but faltered down the stretch in a 70-61 loss to the Cougars.
Before Wichita State (11-11, 4-6 AAC) moves on to its next American Athletic Conference game, a 2 p.m. road trip to Tulsa (5-16, 1-9 AAC) streaming on ESPN+, The Eagle identified five details that prevented the Shockers from pulling off the stunner.
1. Houston and WSU both solve the puzzle, but only Cougars capitalize
The game-within-the-game between Wichita State and Houston was how each offense navigated the pick-and-roll game down the stretch.
Both teams put two defenders on the ball handler coming off a screen, so the puzzle each team had to solve was for the point guard to make the slip pass and then for the big man to make the right split-second decision on where to go with the ball to capitalize on the momentary 3-on-2 advantage.
Simply put: Houston’s shooters knocked down the three-pointers down the stretch and WSU’s shooters did not.
In fact, the Shockers’ two biggest missed opportunities of the game both came after solving Houston’s defensive puzzle and producing wide-open threes.
The first came when WSU’s Gus Okafor received a pass on the roll, penetrated the lane to collapse Houston’s defense and kicked out to Jaron Pierre for the most efficient 3-point shot in the game: a wide-open catch-and-shoot look in the corner. The shot would have extended WSU’s lead to 54-47, but it missed and Houston’s Marcus Sasser scored at the other end within seconds to instead trim WSU’s lead to 51-49.
A nearly identical situation played out just a minute later when Kenny Pohto screened for Craig Porter, rolled to the free throw line to receive the slip pass and then fired to Okafor in the corner. Houston’s defense rotated, but Okafor kept the ball moving and found Jaykwon Walton open for a 3-pointer from the left wing that would have given the Shockers a 56-49 lead.
But just like before, Walton’s shot missed and seconds later Sasser was fouled in transition and made a pair of free throws to instead cut WSU’s lead to 53-51 with 7:24 remaining.
At the other end of the floor, Houston also found its share of open three-point looks as a result of bending WSU’s defense in the pick-and-roll. Unlike WSU, which missed its final nine long-range attempts, Houston made 4 of 7 three-pointers in the final 10 minutes.
2. WSU’s lack of traditional rim protector exposed by Houston
While Craig Porter has the title of the best shot-blocking guard in the country, there’s only so much rim protection he can provide at 6-foot-2.
The best interior defenses always have the looming threat of a long-limbed shot-blocker patrolling the paint. Kenny Pohto, WSU’s 6-foot-11 center, rates as a fine shot-blocker, but he’s far from a disruptive presence at the rim.
Houston was able to exploit WSU’s lack of a traditional rim protector in the paint, as its talented trio of guards in Marcus Sasser, Jamal Shead and Tramon Mark mostly had their way against the Shockers.
Any defense in the country would have problems containing those three and WSU’s defense proved to be no exception. The Shockers struggled to contain Sasser and Shead at the point of attack, then offered little-to-no resistance at the rim when Houston’s guards attacked.
The Cougars scored 14 of their 25 baskets at the rim and shot 70% (14 of 20), which is 19% above the national average, per cbbanalytics.com.
Clinging to a 51-47 lead in the final 9 minutes, WSU failed to contain Sasser at the top of the key and then no shot-blocker was there to dissuade him from taking a wide-open layup. Later in the game, Shead scored in a similar manner, driving to his right, bumping his defender off of him and then easily finishing with no threat of a shot-blocker to extend Houston’s lead to 59-55 with 3:30 remaining.
Shead finished the onslaught when he caught WSU big man James Rojas in a switch, attacked off the dribble and then laid it off to J’Wan Roberts for one of Houston’s five dunks in the game and a 66-59 lead with 1:01 left to all but seal the victory.
3. Houston’s star freshman made WSU pay for defensive gamble
Jarace Walker is a more-than-capable three-point shooter, which is part of the reason why the 6-foot-8 freshman man-child is considered a lock to be a first-round NBA Draft pick.
That put WSU’s defense in a bind: either sacrifice help defense in the lane by keeping Walker’s defender attached to him on the perimeter or sacrifice open kick-out shots for Walker by sending his defender to the lane for help defense.
Even the best defenses must give up something and WSU made the decision it would just have to live with Walker bombing away, as James Rojas was instructed to provide help defense rather than hug the talented freshman on the perimeter. Even though Walker entered as a 37% 3-point shooter, he was even more dangerous inside, where he was making 72% of his shots at the rim.
It’s hard to say it was the wrong choice when Walker was mired in a poor-shooting performance for the majority of the game. But when the game was on the line, Walker made WSU pay for its decision with two of the biggest shots of the game.
“Sometimes big-time players make big-time plays and I give him all of the credit,” WSU head coach Isaac Brown said. “He stepped up and made some tough threes.”
The former five-star recruit and McDonald’s All American nailed back-to-back three-pointers from almost the same spot in the right corner, first to tie the game and then to take the lead. Both shots were open because Rojas was pulled away to provide help defense in the paint.
Walker’s first triple brought Houston level with WSU at 54 with 6:12 remaining, then his second three-ball armed the Cougars with a lead, 57-54, they never relinquished in the final 4:20. Walker tied his career-high with three makes beyond the arc against WSU.
“We know (Walker) can make those shots, but we were forcing him to shoot the ball and make shots,” Rojas said. “I was always in help, so I was closing out long and that’s tough. He made a couple big shots. He gets a lot of credit for that.”
4. Shockers failed to secure defensive rebound in final 5 minutes
After struggling on the defensive glass all season, WSU delivered its best effort of the season in the first 34 minutes against Houston.
Kenny Pohto (career-high 12 rebounds) was finally vacuuming up rebounds like a 6-foot-11 center should and the Shockers were boarding out at an astounding 78% clip against the third-best offensive rebounding team in the country. If that mark would have stood, it would have been Houston’s season low.
Instead, Houston grabbed offensive rebounds on three straight possessions and scored 5 second-chance points as a result. In fact, WSU failed to collect a single defensive rebound in the final five minutes.
There’s nothing more demoralizing to a defense than delivering 20 straight seconds of fighting through screens, making the right rotations and contesting the shot, only for all of that good work to be undone by a missed check-out assignment.
Looking for a defensive stop with Houston in front 57-55 in the final four minutes, WSU thought it had one when Craig Porter made a strong contest on a pull-up jumper by Marcus Sasser and forced a miss. Pohto and James Rojas did their jobs, clearing out Houston’s two best offensive rebounders, J’Wan Roberts and Jarace Walker. But when the shot went up, Jaykwon Walton, instead of turning and boxing out his man, watched the ball sail through the air, allowing Houston’s Tramon Mark to easily grab the offensive rebound. Ten seconds later, Jamal Shead was muscling his way to the rim to extend Houston’s lead to 59-55.
It’s clear WSU would not have even been in the game without Walton’s heroics on the offensive end — he matched his career-high of 24 points against Houston. But ball-watching instead of boxing out is perhaps the only bad habit of Walton, who otherwise is building a case for all-conference honors this season.
Houston also grabbed an offensive rebound on the possession before, although WSU was the victim of a bad-luck bounce on that one. Porter once again played solid defense and contested strongly on a Sasser miss from the top of the key and although Pohto had inside position in the paint, the ball caromed off the back of the rim and sailed over his head where Houston’s Reggie Chaney was able to bring it down with one arm.
It once again was a devastating result for WSU, as the scramble for the rebound left the Shockers’ defense exposed and Sasser found Jarace Walker on for a corner three to break a 54-54 tie with 4:20 remaining.
Due to a turnover, made free throws and a pair of dunks by Houston, there was not a defensive rebound available again following the 60-second sequence when the Cougars scored their crucial second-chance points.
5. Good foul shooters left points at the line for WSU
Leaving points at the free throw line also came back to haunt the Shockers.
After making 85% of its shots from the foul line in the first 30 minutes of the game, WSU split all five trips to the charity stripe in the final 10 minutes of the game.
What made the 5-for-10 performance all the more frustrating was WSU had the right shooters at the line. Craig Porter, Jaykwon Walton and James Rojas had made a combined 85% of their free throws in WSU’s last five games. But Porter and Rojas both missed two free throws and Walton also missed one down the stretch against Houston.
While there was never a free throw attempt to tie or take the lead, the misses added up. When Porter split his second pair of free throws with 1:58 remaining, WSU trailed by five points 62-57, the exact amount of missed free throws that had accumulated in the final 10 minutes.
This story was originally published February 4, 2023 at 9:43 AM.
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