Valiant effort comes up short on the road for Wichita State in loss to Florida Atlantic
One after another, each 3-pointer raised the decibel level inside Eleanor R. Baldwin Arena.
In less than 90 seconds, the Florida Atlantic men’s basketball team changed the tenor of Thursday’s game with a barrage from deep to snatch an upset bid away and deliver heartbreak instead to Wichita State.
The Shockers may find solace in their valiant effort, the best of the Paul Mills era, but the final result — an 86-77 win by the No. 23-ranked Owls — still counts the same as the previous six games in the program’s longest losing streak since 2009.
“Nobody wants a moral victory, so we’re not getting that much better,” WSU guard Harlond Beverly said. “But I do believe the way we’re playing now, it’s going to start translating to wins soon.”
The second straight game against a top-25 opponent in American Athletic Conference play featured the second straight spirited effort on offense, as WSU made 56.4% of its shots, hit eight 3-pointers and scored a healthy 1.15 points per possession.
That translated to the Shockers playing in front for more than 29 minutes on Thursday, but just about every bugaboo haunted the team down the stretch — missed box-outs, turnovers, poor transition defense and missed free throws.
For the decisive final eight minutes, WSU (8-9, 0-4 AAC) played like a team still in the discovery process under a first-year head coach and FAU (14-4, 4-1 AAC) played like a team with almost everyone back from last year’s Final Four run.
Florida Atlantic’s big three of Johnell Davis, Alijah Martin and Vladislav Goldin were every bit as good as advertised with a combined 58 points, as the Owls out-scored WSU 21-12 in second-chance points and 17-9 in points off turnovers.
“We have guys who are extremely difficult to guard in space,” FAU head coach Dusty May said. “If we can rebound the ball, separate and pitch ahead and let those guys play 2-on-2 versus 5-on-5, then we are a much better offensive team. We’ve got great athletes and we’ve got great play-makers, so we need to find ways to get them in space and that’s the easiest way to do it.”
WSU struggled with defensive rebounding, as FAU turned seven offensive rebounds into 13 second-chance points in the second half.
“We know how Florida Atlantic wins and how they lose,” Mills said. “The metrics are pretty clear. You can’t give up (that many) o-boards.
“We’re not the most skilled team. What we have to be is physical. We’ve got to do a better job, especially with the physical lineup that we put out there, of retrieving those rebounds and limiting teams to one shot. Because it’s pretty deflating when you play defense for 28 seconds, then they get another (20).”
Offensive rebounds fueled FAU’s game-defining, 9-point rally in less than 90 seconds to take control of the game down the stretch. Two of the three 3-pointers the Owls made came on second-chance opportunities when WSU wasn’t able to finish the stop with a rebound. That turned a 4-point WSU lead into a 69-66 deficit with 5 minutes, 45 seconds remaining and FAU never relinquished the lead after that.
“It’s extremely deflating because when you work hard to get a stop and then they get the rebound and another shot and it’s a wide-open 3, it’s like, ‘What did we do all of that for?’” said WSU leading scorer Colby Rogers, who scored 18 on Thursday. “We’ve got to have better attention to detail and make sure we hit guys first and grab rebounds with two hands and sustain that for 40 minutes. We can’t play 32 good minutes, then the last eight not be good.”
Following Sunday’s loss to Memphis, where WSU allowed the fifth-most points in program history in a 112-86 loss, Mills promised a shake-up was coming. That turned out to be inserting Bijan Cortes (eight points, four assists) into the starting lineup, as the point guard helped maximize 6-foot-11 center Quincy Ballard (career-high 18 points) as a lob threat in the pick-and-roll game.
WSU produced an ideal start on the road, building a 17-4 lead and ending the first half on a 14-0 run to take a 42-31 lead into halftime.
WSU also saw its other center, Kenny Pohto, find a groove offensively in the second half, as he finished with seven of his nine points to help the Shockers go blow-for-blow with the Owls coming out of halftime.
The Shockers had three chances to cut into a 69-66 deficit in the final six minutes, but came up empty each time. Cortes drilled a triple to cut FAU’s lead to 75-71 with 3:02 remaining, but FAU score again at the free throw line following an offensive rebound and Rogers missed the front-end of a bonus free throw. On WSU’s next possession, Rogers threw an errant pass that sparked a fast break and yet another 3-pointer for the Owls, a dagger by Davis for a 79-71 lead with 2:06 left.
“We’ve got to play for all 40 minutes,” Rogers said. “You can’t just hope to win against a team like this. You’ve got to go out and beat them. We kind of beat ourselves there at the end.”
Once again, missed free throws (the Shockers shot 50% at the line and now rank No. 323 in the country in foul shooting) and turnovers (14 total for a 20% turnover rate) plagued the Shockers.
“We’re just not going to be great at being able to make free throws,” Mills said. “That’s just now who we are.”
WSU will remain in Florida following Thursday’s game and travel to Tampa on Friday in preparation for Sunday’s 1 p.m. Central game at South Florida.
The Shockers will try to avoid their first 7-game losing streak since 2001 when the team lost 11 in a row during Mark Turgeon’s first season as head coach.
This story was originally published January 18, 2024 at 8:11 PM.
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