‘Thick skin and big hearts’: Team meeting clears air for Wichita State basketball to win
A come-to-Jesus meeting on Monday revealed the Wichita State men’s basketball team still is invested in this season.
A blow-out 79-63 win over Tulsa at Koch Arena on Wednesday showed the Shockers still have some fight left.
“This is about thick skin and big hearts,” WSU head coach Paul Mills said he told his players before the game. “We needed some guys with thicker skin and the only way you get thicker skin is you better get on that floor and find a way to get two hands on the basketball.”
Following two straight double-digit losses with questionable effort in last week’s North Carolina road swing, Mills confronted the issue head-on when the team returned home.
Players were given the floor to speak freely about what has been a disappointing season with WSU entering the week in a three-way tie for last place in the American Athletic Conference standings. Wednesday’s win improved WSU to 11-16 this season with a 3-11 mark in conference play.
“We got a lot of things off our chest and got some frustration out,” WSU leading scorer Colby Rogers said.
“It was just an honest conversation,” WSU junior Xavier Bell added. “With the conference tournament right around the corner, we needed to make sure we’re on the same page.”
Mills said he never doubted every player on the roster had “10 toes in the sand,” but acknowledged poor effort had become an issue at times in recent losses to East Carolina and Charlotte.
When the players were done airing their feelings, the coaching staff responded and the open dialogue and back-and-forth made for a constructive meeting. Mills said additional 1-on-1 meetings with players and coaches were scheduled and handled uniquely.
“When you have children, sometimes you have to be really stern and sometimes you have to go, ‘If you don’t get this done, there are huge consequences,’” Mills said. “It’s always different. It isn’t as if the guys haven’t been trying. It’s just that the effort needed to be better collectively. You can have four guys out there doing something and then if one guy isn’t, everybody is going to suffer. I thought collectively we needed to make sure we were all on the same page.”
One player who was challenged to respond was junior center Kenny Pohto, who did not play in the second half against Charlotte and logged just three rebounds and a turnover in seven minutes played.
It was a clear message from the coaching staff to Pohto and Monday’s film session was a tough one for the 6-foot-11 big man from Sweden.
Instead of pouting about lost playing time, Pohto went to work in practice. He credited fellow centers Quincy Ballard and Jacob Germany for not only pushing him to improve, but also pushing him to stay positive and confident about his game.
“We learned a lot about effort,” Pohto said about the two days before Wednesday’s game. “That’s what had to change. We had to have more grit.”
Pohto responded to the call-out with one of his finest games of the season, scoring 16 points — his most since Nov. 25 — on 7-of-10 shooting to go along with a team-high seven rebounds and two steals in 18 productive minutes off the bench.
His physicality and effort were catalysts in the first half when WSU built a 17-point halftime lead.
“As coaches, it’s unkind to be unclear,” Mills said. “Guys need to know exactly what’s required of them. Do you meet the standard or don’t you? I think for (Pohto), he obviously met the standard tonight.”
Wednesday’s game was an interesting case study inside the mind of how WSU players view the season. Would the team roll over in what some fans have considered a lost season? Or would the players look at the end-of-season schedule and see opportunity to build momentum going into the conference tournament?
The Shockers answered that question emphatically, building a 25-point lead early in the second half and playing the final 22 minutes with a double-digit advantage.
A home win over a bottom-half team like Tulsa doesn’t prove much in the grand scheme of of the season, but it’s a start. WSU has a golden opportunity on Sunday to build its first winning streak since November with a home date against last-place Temple.
“It’s a reminder to us how good we are and how good we can be as a collective,” Bell said.
“It shows us just how resilient we are,” Rogers said. “We’ve faced a lot of adversity this year, but we keep going and keep fighting. That’s all you can do.”
.jpg)