Inside Justin Hill’s electric debut, the best in Wichita State basketball history
When the basketball game seems to be at its most complex, Justin Hill finds a way to keep it simple.
The senior point guard joined the Wichita State men’s basketball team not only to play in big games in rowdy environments like the season-opener on Monday on the road at Western Kentucky. He came to win them.
In a chaotic game, Hill was often the calming presence for the Shockers. And when their offense teetered, Hill was almost always there to deliver in the clutch.
“You just have to remember at the end of the day, it’s just basketball,” Hill said. “It’s just a game.”
Monday’s game isn’t one Shocker fans will likely forget anytime soon after Hill led WSU in nearly every meaningful category — a career-high 31 points, eight rebounds, six assists, three steals — to help engineer a 91-84 win at WKU in the program’s first true road season-opener since 1992.
Hill’s 31 points go down in the record book as the best debut performance in WSU history, topping Bob Wilson’s 29 points against Oregon State for the Shockers on Dec. 1, 1972.
“He’s not playing,” WSU senior Xavier Bell said. “When it was winning time, you saw him step up in those moments and put the team on his back and he delivered. He’s going to help us get to where we’re trying to go.”
WSU has a long ways to go before talk of a return to the NCAA Tournament is warranted, but the Shockers did show their mettle by handling a team with two-thirds of its production back from last season’s March Madness and Conference USA championship squad. The Hilltoppers, who held a ring ceremony before the game, have the second-oldest roster in the country this season.
Many of WSU’s mistakes on Monday were erased by the individual brilliance of Hill, whether it was tough shot-making, rebounding, creating for others or defending.
Wondering just how vital he was to the victory? WSU beat WKU by 19 points (83-64) in the nearly 33 minutes Hill played, while the Hilltoppers won the minutes with Hill on the bench by 12 (20-8). Another astonishing stat: including the baskets scored on his six assists, Hill accounted for more than half of WSU’s total offense — 46 of 91 points.
“That guy does it all,” WSU senior Ronnie DeGray III said of Hill. “Everyone is going to talk about the 31, but he also had six assists and eight rebounds and three steals. He really did it all for us today.”
It’s been many years, perhaps back when the Shockers were regular championship contenders, since the last time WSU had a guard with the wiggle of Hill. The Shockers have sorely lacked a trustworthy player who can rescue the offense deep in the shot clock, but Hill has a career of credentials and showed Monday he is up for the task of shouldering a much higher offensive load than he did the last two seasons at Georgia.
What was so impressive about Hill’s 31-point outburst is that hardly anything was forced. He kept it simple — “I just took what the defense gave me” — and scored at all three levels on the court. In fact, he tied a career-high with four 3-pointers, a feat he had done just twice before in a 127-game career.
“We did not do a good job at making him uncomfortable at anything,” WKU coach Hank Plona said. “We need to make sure in those situations we find something to take away, rather than trying to guard it all and failing to do so. We need to be more deliberate about what we’re trying to take away and at least make him uncomfortable.”
Instead, the deliberate one was Hill.
If a defender shaded him toward the sideline to try to take away the middle, he exploded past them and finished at the rim. If his man left to go double team the post, Hill floated around the perimeter and was ready to knock down 3s on kick-out passes.
And when the time came to put the game away — “Winning time,” as Bell described — Hill dug into his bag of ball-handling tricks to put his defender in a blender and bury a step-back 17-footer for an 80-71 lead with 3:53 remaining.
“You’re going to have to have guys who can go make shots when it matters,” WSU coach Paul Mills said. “It was just good to see (Hill) under the lights and just how competitive he is because he does have other levels. You have to have some poise in order to win on the road and I thought he exhibited that.”
After playing so well to build an 11-point lead with 1:45 left, WSU showed the opposite of poise down the stretch — missing five of six free throws, playing traffic-cone defense and fouling a rebounder — to allow WKU rally to within 85-82 with 30 seconds still left.
In WSU’s time of crisis, it was Hill who demanded the ball.
He had missed one of those free throws during the collapse and craved the chance at redemption. With a hostile road crowd desperately wanting a miss to give the Hilltoppers a chance, Hill calmly sank six straight free throws in the final 30 seconds to ice the victory.
The key? Keep it simple. Hill did the same routine in front of 4,547 crazed fans as he does every morning in the practice gym at Koch Arena: two dribbles, a spin of the ball in his hands, no bend in the knees and a swish.
Wins like the one on Monday could signal change is coming for the Shockers after a disappointing campaign last season. To Hill, he’s more than ready to be the one who helps bring the change.
“This one feels good because we accepted the challenge,” said Hill, who had WSU’s victory chain draped around his neck and was still soaking wet from his teammates dousing him in water in the locker room. “We got down early, but we kept fighting. It feels good to come out on top of this one.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 6:23 AM.
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