Three takeaways from Wichita State basketball’s win over Alcorn State for 7-1 start
After more than a two-week layoff from Koch Arena, the Wichita State men’s basketball team returned home on Wednesday and made easy work of Alcorn State in a 78-54 win.
It was a palate-cleansing performance for the Shockers in their first game since a 37-point loss to Florida, the fifth-worst loss in program history, as they improved to 7-1 for the fourth time since 2017.
Quincy Ballard had a dominant two-way performance with his third career double-double, scoring a team-high 14 points with 14 rebounds and three blocks. Sharpshooter A.J. McGinnis finally got on track and erupted for a season-high four 3s to score 14 points off the bench, while Corey Washington added 10 points and seven rebounds. Harlond Beverly tied his career-high with eight assists.
1. WSU ensures no shocking upset this time
The last time Alcorn State came to the Roundhouse, the 18.5-point underdogs escaped with a stunning 66-57 victory over the Shockers on Nov. 12, 2022.
While it was far from a crisp performance from WSU, there was no repeat on Wednesday. It took the Shockers about 16 minutes to maintain a double-digit lead, then used the majority of the second half to get young players like Joy Ighovodja, Zion Pipkin and Yanis Bamba experience.
It wasn’t that WSU ever appeared to be in danger of losing Wednesday’s game. It was Wednesday’s performance was far from WSU’s best effort.
The rebounding issues (more on that soon) weren’t straightened out, the team took Alcorn State’s bait and attempted more 3s than 2s in the first half and there wasn’t an avalanche of consistently great play on offense to truly bury one of the lowest-rated teams in the country — until the final minutes of the blowout.
A bright spot, however, came in WSU’s defense, which held Alcorn State to 26% shooting — a late flurry of scoring prevented WSU from recording a top-5 performance in program history for opponent field-goal percentage. It should be noted the Braves are one of the least efficient teams in the country, as they entered ranked dead last in the country with their 33.1% field goal percentage.
Another positive was the shooting of senior A.J. McGinnis, who snapped out of his early-season funk to drill 4 of 8 triples and score a team-high 14 points. He was just 4-of-16 beyond the arc in WSU’s first seven games.
2. Shockers’ rebounding issues continue
While a winless Alcorn State may not have posed much of a threat to win the game, the one area where the Braves could challenge the Shockers was on the glass.
Alcorn State entered Wednesday’s game ranked No. 93 nationally in offensive rebounding percentage, retrieving nearly 34% of its own misses. And after WSU gave up 20 offensive rebounds and 56 total rebounds, the most allowed by the team since before 1999, one would figure the Shockers would be especially motivated.
But WSU’s defensive rebounding issues persisted, as Alcorn State collected 21 offensive rebounds to retrieve 36% of its misses and WSU failed to board out above a 70% rate on the defensive end for the third straight game. The team’s target is anywhere above 75%.
While Alcorn State wasn’t able to make WSU pay on Wednesday, the Shockers will need to clean up the glass much better with top-50 offensive rebounding teams coming up on the schedule in East Tennessee State (No. 12 nationally), DePaul (No. 41) and Kansas State (No. 30).
3. Milestone performance for WSU’s Quincy Ballard
In his short time with the Shockers, big man Quincy Ballard has etched his name in the history books.
After shattering the single-season school record for field-goal percentage and finishing with one of the best blocks seasons in school history, Ballard added another achievement in Wednesday’s game.
With his three blocks against Alcorn State, Ballard (101 career blocks) moved into a tie for seventh place on WSU’s all-time blocks list with Garrett Stutz — in 87 fewer games than the former star Shocker big man.
Ballard figures to move up the career blocks list fast, as he could pass Xavier McDaniel (103), Gene Wiley (105) and Claudius Johnson (109) by the end of this month. He still has work to do to catch No. 3 all-time Robert Elmore (132) and No. 2 all-time Shaquille Morris (147), while the block king, Antoine Carr, is out of reach.
Ballard is also on pace (1.98 blocks per game) to shatter the school record for blocks per game in a career. He also added his first double-double of the season with 14 points on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting to go along with 14 rebounds.
Up next: Shockers vs. East Tennessee State, 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7 on ESPN+
Wichita State will play ETSU for the first time in program history.
The Buccaneers (6-3) are off to a solid start to the season, climbing to No. 125 in the KenPom rankings with a 20-point win at Charlotte, a fellow AAC member.
Other info about Wichita State-Alcorn State basketball game
- Alcorn State has played all 10 of its games on the road and won’t play its first home game until Jan. 4 to open SWAC play against Jackson State.
- WSU entered the game ranked No. 29 nationally in turnovers per game (9.1), No. 31 in defensive rebounds per game (28.9) and No. 32 in free throws made per game (18.6).
- The Shockers checked in at No. 93 in the debut NET rankings released by the NCAA on Dec. 2. Alcorn State was ranked No. 358 out of 364 teams.
- WSU is still missing three players due to injury: senior forward Ronnie DeGray III (wrist), senior center Zane Meeks (knee) and freshman wing T.J. Williams (knee). DeGray and Meeks both have target dates of returning by the start of conference play in January, while Williams is working his way back into practice.
- Alcorn State head coach Landon Bussie led the Braves to back-to-back league championship in 2022 and 2023, winning the program’s first title in 20 years.
- The Braves only have one player averaging in double-digit scoring, led by Keionte Cornelius at 10.1 points per game. He was shooting 38% on 3-pointers with 60 of his 79 attempts coming beyond the arc.
- On this date, Dec. 4, Ralph Miller earned his first career victory in a 93-59 win over Baylor in 1951; Zarko Durisic scored a career-high 30 points to lead WSU to a 78-72 win over North Texas in the 1982 McDonald’s Classic title game; and also a 74-71 overtime win by the Shockers over No. 12-ranked Alabama in 1990 when head coach Mike Cohen injured his knee in the first half and spent the rest of the game on crutches.
This story was originally published December 4, 2024 at 8:21 PM.
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