Wichita State basketball elevates its play, but Penny’s Memphis Tigers still better
Penny Hardaway’s Memphis Tigers continue to be a code the Wichita State men’s basketball team can’t crack.
The Shockers played one of their better games of the season on Thursday night in front of a national television audience and half-full-but-passionate crowd at Koch Arena, but Memphis was just a little bit better in an 83-78 win by the Tigers.
While it was WSU’s best effort against Memphis since its only win against Hardaway on Jan. 9, 2020, the former NBA star-turned-coach improved to 8-1 and won his sixth straight game against the Shockers.
“It’s just a beautiful thing how we keep — ‘Next man up’ — plugging away,” Hardaway said. “This is all a blessing because we’re injured and we’re fighting through it against good teams. Wichita State has been playing really well and we won a big game on the road that we really needed.”
Indeed, Memphis (21-7, 11-4 AAC) avoided a late-February grenade that could have damaged its NCAA Tournament aspirations, while the Shockers (14-13, 7-8 AAC) squandered a chance to continue their late-season rise in the American Athletic Conference standings.
What did continue was WSU’s yo-yo season, as it still has yet to win three games in a row. The loss also puts WSU in danger of its first losing season at home — the Shockers are just 7-9 in Wichita this season — since 1996, as the team dropped to 2-6 at Koch Arena in conference play.
There was no shame in losing to Memphis, especially with an inspired effort like the one by WSU on Thursday, but that doesn’t mean much in a season with so many disappointments on its home court.
“I honestly don’t know what it is,” WSU star senior Craig Porter said. “I’ve got to take most of the blame for that. I’m supposed to be the leader of this team.”
There were 16 lead changes and 12 ties in the first 32 minutes, but Memphis pulled away for the largest separation in the game with an 8-0 spurt to open up a 69-62 lead with 5:52 remaining.
WSU was without James Rojas, who had a career-high 19 points at halftime, during the stretch because he had been whistled for questionable third and fourth fouls early in the second half. He missed a crucial 7-minute stretch in the second half and finished with no points in the period after making all seven of his shots in the first half.
The Shockers left the game miffed by the officiating overall, especially during Memphis’ game-breaking 8-0 run. A Damaria Franklin 3-pointer came on the heels of a no-call at the other end when Kenny Pohto went tumbling to the ground on a shot inside, then a generous continuation call allowed a basket by DeAndre Williams to count when WSU believed it had fouled him on the ground.
“I don’t ever talk about officiating and I’m not tonight, but Rojas picked up that fourth foul and that was a huge difference in the game,” WSU head coach Isaac Brown said. “The referee made a call and we have to live with it. That was that.”
In truth, it was WSU’s inability to produce a defensive stop that was its downfall.
In the final 11 minutes of the game, Memphis scored 1.58 points per possession, a scorching rate of efficiency that saw WSU’s defense only come up with four stops on Memphis’ final 19 trips down the floor.
Led by 37 combined points from Kendric Davis, the reigning AAC Player of the Year, and Williams, Memphis shot better than 50% against WSU for the fourth straight game. In fact, Memphis has shot a combined 54% from the field and 44% on 3-pointers in its last four games against WSU, whose defense has only allowed two other opponents to shoot better than 50% in the other 49 games from the last two seasons.
“We couldn’t get a stop,” Brown said. “We just couldn’t guard them all night defensively. Normally we’re a really good defensive team, but we have struggled defending them and that was the difference in the game. We just didn’t defend; 78 points is enough to win, but we just didn’t defend at a high level like we needed to.”
In many ways, WSU accomplished what it set out to do against Memphis — limit turnovers (seven in 67 possessions), hold its own on the glass (WSU actually rebounded at a higher clip) and control the paint (WSU outscored Memphis 48-32 in the paint and shot 6% better on 2-pointers).
But in a close game against a quality opponent, the Shockers lost their discipline too often, recklessly hoisting 3-pointer after 3-pointer, much to the delight of Memphis, on their way to a 6-of-27 performance from beyond the arc. Some shots were open and in rhythm, but too many were contested and early in the shot clock.
“Some of those were bad shots that led to transition chances for them,” said Porter, who took ownership of his role in the problem with his 1-for-7 showing on 3-pointers. “We haven’t been taking that many 3s the last few games and we’ve been feeding it inside. That’s what has been winning us games. Getting away from that slightly is what lost it for us.”
WSU’s final lead came with 8:20 remaining when Jaron Pierre (15 points) drilled a triple right in front of the home bench to put the Shockers up 62-61. But that’s when Memphis answered with its 8-0 spurt to open up the game’s largest lead.
The Shockers were scoring at a brisk pace, but trading baskets too many times down the stretch. Jaykwon Walton (14 points, six assists) hit a layup, but Davis answered with a layup of his own. Pierre scored just eight seconds later, but WSU gave up a dunk at the other end.
Porter scored four straight points to cut the deficit to 74-72 with 1:45 remaining, but WSU failed to register a stop when it needed it the most. The Shockers did well to crowd Davis and force the ball out of his hands, but Walton was caught ball-watching and missed his defensive rotation, which allowed Johnathan Lawson to line up what became a dagger 3-pointer at the end of the shot clock with 1:16 left to extend Memphis’ lead to 77-72.
“When we’re trading baskets like that, it’s hard to win,” Porter said.
Porter finished with 15 points (on 6-of-18 shooting), seven rebounds, seven assists and five steals, becoming just the second player in AAC history to finish with at least five steals, seven assists and zero turnovers in a game. He has also recorded at least six assists in five straight games, the longest such streak by a WSU player since Melvin McKey accomplished the feat in 1996.
Up next, WSU is back on the road, where it will travel to second-place Tulane (17-8, 10-4 AAC) for a 2 p.m. Sunday game.
This story was originally published February 23, 2023 at 8:14 PM.
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