The bizarre stats the Wichita State basketball team finished with in loss to Houston
A 17-point home victory by No. 1 Houston over the Wichita State men’s basketball team doesn’t indicate how bizarre the game was on Thursday.
A blind box-score test would confuse any college basketball fan.
Team A made 65% of its shots and 50% of its 3-pointers, while Team B shot 47% from the field and 36% on 3-pointers.
Which team won? Would anyone pick Team B?
If Houston has proven anything over the years under coach Kelvin Sampson, it’s that shooting percentages don’t matter when you play the Cougars.
Houston survived a spectacular shooting performance from the upset-minded Shockers by pounding them on the glass, turning them over 20 times and winning just about every loose ball.
“You can’t look at our box score stats and judge us,” Sampson said. “We get so many points off loose balls and turnovers and second-chance points. We’re not a very pretty first-shot team. Never have been. So you can’t judge us against someone based on their box score versus our box score because we’ve never been about that.”
WSU’s 73% effective field goal percentage was the highest allowed by Houston in a game since 2002. Making the feat even more impressive is that Houston entered as the No. 1 field goal percentage defense in the country.
The Shockers became just the 11th NCAA Div. 1 team — and the first from a high-major conference — to lose a game shooting at least 65% in the last 13 seasons, according to Sports Reference.
“When you play Houston, the key to the game is you’ve got to be able to compete,” WSU head coach Isaac Brown said. “It’s not going to be about making or missing shots, it’s about competing and who’s going to be the tougher team.”
WSU was also in position to break the 36-year-old school record for field goal percentage in a game, set by the Shockers in 1987 when they made 66.7% of their shots against Austin Peay. With a little more than five minutes remaining, WSU’s field goal percentage stood at 73.3%.
But the Shockers misfired on 5 of their last 7 shots to finish 24-of-37 from the field, a 64.9% mark that settled for a tie for fourth-highest in school history.
Despite an all-time shooting performance, WSU’s offensive efficiency was pedestrian at 1.02 points per possession. That’s because the Shockers left nine points on the table at the foul line (12 of 21) and nearly 31% of their possessions ended in turnovers (20 total for the game).
If such stat was available, it’s a safe bet that WSU’s efficiency would rank near the worst of any team that has shot at least 65% from the field in a game.
“They did a good job of ambushing the low post and they pressure you hard and turned us over,” Brown said. “Twenty turnovers is way too many, but I’m proud of our guys for fighting hard. They played hard.”
And they did it all without leading scorer Jaykwon Walton, who was not in the building on Thursday due to a sickness.
For the first 20 minutes, WSU star Craig Porter carried the Shockers to an impressive first half. The point guard had a game-high 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting at halftime, but foul trouble limited him in the second half.
“With Kwon being out, I knew I was going to have to take on a bigger role,” Porter said. “I just accepted that challenge and I was really willing to do whatever it would take to win.”
That was enough to earn lofty praise from Sampson afterward.
“I don’t know if there’s a point guard in this league that I have more respect for than Porter,” Sampson said. “He’s not just good, he’s really good. I love that kid, man. He just has ‘winner’ stamped on his forehead.”
While Porter and the Shockers showed they could compete with No. 1 Houston just days before the American Athletic Conference, the team is still lacking in discipline and that turned what should have been a close game into a blowout loss.
Houston pummeled WSU for 11 offensive rebounds and a 15-7 advantage in second-chance points, forced 20 turnovers and outscored WSU 17-4 in points off turnovers and shot 91% from the foul line compared to WSU’s 57% mark.
“They just came out with a little more toughness this game than we did,” Porter said. “That was the separator right there.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
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