‘You live for those moments’: Shockers come up clutch for Minnesota overtime win
Hindsight will ultimately prove the significance of Harlond Beverly’s shot on Thursday to the Wichita State men’s basketball season.
Could it unlock a Quad 2 victory that helps boost the Shockers’ chance of returning to the postseason come March?
Only time will tell, but for the moment, Beverly’s last-second 3-pointer to force overtime, where WSU eventually prevailed in a 68-66 win over Minnesota, turned what was sure to be a regret-filled loss into an improbable victory.
And now the Shockers (6-0) will play No. 18-ranked Florida (7-0) for the ESPN Events Invitational championship at 2:30 p.m. Central time Friday with a national audience watching on ESPN.
“They done messed up and let us stay in the game,” WSU senior Justin Hill said of his mindset after Beverly’s heroics. “We all felt 100% like we were going to win that game after that.”
In true Shocker fashion, nothing came easy, even with WSU leading by four points with the ball as the clock ticked under 30 seconds in overtime. Minnesota forced back-to-back turnovers and scored easy layups at the other end to tie the game with 13.5 seconds left.
But with the game on the line, Hill drew a foul with 4.6 seconds left and just like he did in the season-opening win at Western Kentucky, stepped to the line to be able to secure another Shocker victory.
“You live for those moments,” Hill said. “You should want to be at the free throw line at the end of the game with the ball in your hands. You want to make big plays for your team, especially after a turnover like I had.”
Even after Hill’s go-ahead free throws, WSU had to survive a nervy final moment when a double-clutch 3-point attempt by Minnesota’s Brennan Rigsby hit the rim four times before the potential game-winner spilled off the back side of the rim after the buzzer had sounded.
“When it hit the rim the first time and it bounced up, I thought the game was over,” WSU head coach Paul Mills said. “And then watching it trickle around, I thought it might be another Kawhi Leonard play.”
The victory saved the Shockers from what surely would have been plenty of anguish in a game they had multiple opportunities to put away — instead of needing a heroic shot by Beverly to win it in overtime.
WSU entered the game ranked fifth in the country at limiting turnovers and looked the part in the first half with just two giveaways, but the team reverted to last season’s problematic ball-handling after halftime. The Shockers coughed the ball up 10 times after halftime, which juiced Minnesota’s offense with 15 points off turnovers — many directly following a mistake by WSU.
Another problem was on the glass, where WSU sorely missed senior forward Ronnie DeGray III, who is out with a wrist injury. The team was already shorthanded with the knee injury to senior center Zane Meeks, then starting power forward Corey Washington fouled out with 4:59 left in regulation and WSU had to play four-guard lineups the final 10 minutes of the game. The Shockers gave up 13 offensive rebounds and boarded out at a season-worst 67.5% on the defensive glass.
A loss would have been a demoralizing start to the team’s holiday stay in the Orlando area.
“It’s a great feeling that we don’t have to think about all that now,” WSU senior Xavier Bell said. “That would have been tough.”
But they recognize the challenge will only grow Friday against a Florida team that is one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country.
“We had a Final Four officiating crew (on Thursday) and we learned that the level of physicality that is sometimes not permitted in Charles Koch Arena is permitted on a neutral floor,” Mills said. “So the biggest takeaway for us is understanding how physical you have to be. We have physical players, but we weren’t physical when it was required of us.”
One positive was how well Washington (6-foot-5, 188 pounds) met the challenge of defending Minnesota star big man Dawson Garcia (6-foot-11, 234 pounds).
Giving up six inches and more than 40 pounds, Washington was able to frustrate Garcia to just four points on 1-of-7 shooting. For a player who entered averaging better than 22 points and ranked No. 6 on KenPom’s National Player of the Year standings, Garcia finished with the lowest point total in his three-year career at Minnesota with the exception of a game he exited early from due to injury.
“I’ve been guarding the best player on the other team since I was in middle school, so it was nothing new,” Washington said. “I’ve guarded guys who are in the NBA (now). The biggest thing was just taking it personal. I watched a lot of film on (Garcia) and noticed he likes deep post position, so I just worked really hard not to allow that. I forced him to put it on the floor and I’m smaller, so I can move laterally more quickly and was able to cut him off and not let him get to where he wanted to go.”
WSU has plenty to clean up if it wants to continue to improve.
The Shockers saw their offense bog down multiple times against Minnesota with a litany of forced misses in the paint to go along with too many turnovers in the second half. WSU can be a much better rebounding team and it still hasn’t had a good outside shooting game since the road opener, as the Shockers went 4-for-14 on 3s on Thursday.
As coaches are fond of saying, it’s always better to learn after a win than learn after a loss.
“We’re resilient. We know how to fight back when we’re down and as long as there’s no double zeros on the clock, we know we have a chance,” Bell said. “It was rough there at times. We turned it over. I turned it over. But we never gave up and we showed that we can fight through adversity.”
None of it would have been possible without the shot by Beverly.
“You have to put time in the gym and shoot that kind of shot with confidence,” Mills said. “Harlond is a confident kid.”
Just how confident was he when the ball left his hands?
“It felt like it was money,” said Beverly with a grin. “I knew it was in as soon as it left my hands.”
This story was originally published November 28, 2024 at 5:48 PM.
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