Could Wichita State basketball have played better defense on ECU’s game-winning shot?
No timeouts, time is running out and you absolutely need a basket and a stop.
Wichita State not only practices scenarios just like the one that unfolded in the closing seconds of Saturday’s men’s basketball game against East Carolina, but head coach Paul Mills said his team watches film on late-game scrambles twice a week.
“That’s a scenario where we were pretty prepared for,” Mills said.
The Shockers may have been prepared, but did they execute the closing moments on Saturday night at Koch Arena like they’ve drilled to handle such situations?
It sure began that way, as senior point guard Justin Hill raced up the court with WSU trailing by two points and the clock dwindling under 10 seconds. He penetrated the lane, kept his composure and dumped off a pass to Quincy Ballard, who slammed home to tie the score with 4.1 seconds left.
Every agonizing defeat spawns second guessing. For WSU, it will be in the moments following Ballard’s basket, when ECU’s R.J. Felton rattled home a 28-foot 3-pointer for the buzzer-beating win to lift the Pirates over the Shockers for the third straight time.
Following Ballard’s basket, all five WSU players sprinted back to their end of the court, which allowed Felton to dribble past halfcourt without facing any pressure. Hill picked up Felton about 35 feet away from the basket and jumped with his hands straight in the air as Felton launched his shot, a contest that felt adequate enough until the ball curled its way through the net.
In hindsight, it seems clear WSU should have applied pressure higher up the court. Instead of allowing Felton to comfortably dribble into a 28-footer for the win, perhaps he would have been forced to launch from 38 feet trying to navigate pressure in 4.1 seconds.
One risk to more aggressive defense would have been any bump whistled against WSU would have sent ECU to the foul line for a chance to win, but that risk seemed preferred — once again, in hindsight — to letting ECU’s best player dribble into a deep, but not too deep, 3-pointer.
“On that last possession, maybe all five of us could have crowded the ball better,” Hill offered up. “But I still think we got a good hand up on the ball. (Felton) just made the shot.”
Without a timeout, all Mills could do from the sidelines was watch it unfold. The coach said afterward his faith in WSU winning the game never wavered — until the last four seconds.
“I was a little worried when I saw R.J. Felton with the ball bringing it up, just because you know he’s the best player on their team,” Mills said. “I knew with 4.1 on the clock, that was probably a little bit too much time for his ability 1-on-1.”
Felton’s shot is recorded as the game-winner that beat the Shockers, but in truth, there were far more costly things that hurt WSU’s chances of winning on Saturday than a career 33% 3-point shooter draining a deep, contested triple at the buzzer.
Like allowing one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in the country to make 11 triples at a 48% rate. Or digging a 12-point hole to a bottom-half conference team on your home court. Or being outscored by 40 points (43-3) in bench points. Or missing five of 10 free throws in a one-possession game. Or the two balloon passes that were easily picked off by ECU and turned into points at the other end. Or surrendering a late-game possession by throwing a wayward inbounds pass against no defensive pressure. Or goaltending a basket after a foul.
WSU was even on the wrong side of one of the most bizarre plays that occurred at Koch Arena in recent history.
Corey Washington followed an Xavier Bell miss and dunked a put-back in the second half. It counted as two points until a media timeout, when officials took it off the scoreboard. A review showed Washington slammed the ball through the rim, only for the ball to bounce off Washington’s head before exiting the net; the ball traveled back up and out of the rim for no basket.
“I think we’ve got to figure out ways to pull away and establish a lead before it even gets to that point,” Bell said. “So we don’t even put ourselves in that position to feel like this at the end of the game.”
For the fourth time in a 1-4 start in American Athletic Conference play, the Shockers were pummeled beyond the arc by their opponent. ECU was the most shocking yet, as the Pirates entered as one of the 10 worst 3-point shooting teams in the country with a team accuracy under 27% against Division I competition. On Saturday, ECU made 11 of 23 looks beyond the arc for a season-best performance in both total makes and accuracy.
“From the beginning, we’ve got to make them feel uncomfortable,” Hill said. “If you hit some in the beginning, you’re more likely to hit some later on. If we set the tone in the beginning, maybe they don’t hit those shots later on.”
Another factor that hurt WSU was allowing C.J. Walker score a career-high 28 points, including a career-best 3-for-3 performance beyond the arc. Walker entered the game with just five 3s on the season and was a 29% career 3-point shooter in 120 games.
Walker torched the Shockers in the final minute. The former blue-chip recruit capitalized on back-to-back isolation calls where the 6-foot-8, 214-pound forward used his athleticism and quickness to beat Quincy Ballard, WSU’s 6-foot-11, 251-pound center, off the dribble for two straight scores down the stretch.
“You give C.J. Walker credit,” Mills said. “I really thought we could shrink the floor a little bit better than we did.”
WSU accomplished plenty enough to win, namely dominating the rebounding battle against what was one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country. But it was the Shockers who owned the offensive glass on Saturday, as they grabbed a season-high 20 offensive rebounds and limited ECU to retrieving just 27% of its misses to finish with a plus-16 edge on the glass and 15-6 advantage in second-chance points.
But even with attempting 57 2-pointers and nearly doubling up ECU in points in the paint (52-28), the Shockers attempted four fewer free throws than ECU (14-10) and finished with their second-lowest free throw rate of the season.
“If you’re going to dominate paint points, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be on the plus side on free throws,” Mills said. “For us not to have those (free throw) opportunities, it’s obviously rare. I’d have to go back and look at the film, but when you’re dominating paint points at that level, it usually leads to more free throw opportunities. You’re usually not a minus-4.”
This story was originally published January 19, 2025 at 6:02 AM.
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