‘Can’t stop it’: The inevitable left hand of Xavier Bell still works for Shockers
It feels like an inevitability Xavier Bell is going left, yet the Wichita State basketball star continues to find success finishing with his dominant hand.
The Wichita native scored 26 points, including a key basket going left late in a tie game, to help put the Shockers over in a 75-70 win at South Florida and secure the team’s second straight road win in American Athletic Conference play.
Wichita State (13-10, 3-7 AAC) has a chance for its first 3-game winning streak in conference play since its 2021 championship run on Wednesday with a 6:30 p.m. game against UTSA with streaming on ESPN+.
“You can’t stop it,” Bell joked about his left hand after the win in Tampa. “But in all seriousness, it’s a testament to my teammates, a testament to my coaches and a testament to God and the work that I put in at the end of the day. My coaches and teammates do a great job of putting me in the right situations to go left and then I just trust the work that I’ve put in outside of practice. I couldn’t do any of it without God and my teammates and coaches, though.”
There’s little doubt every scouting report on WSU’s leading scorer begins and ends with selling out to force Bell to go right. Even armed with the prior knowledge and opposing coaches screaming at defenders during games to sit on Bell’s left hand, the 6-foot-2 guard continues to find ways to drive left and finish with his left hand.
No basket from Bell was bigger in the South Florida win than the one he scored with 4:45 remaining in the second half to break a 60-all tie. He began in a standstill 40 feet away from the basket, then exploded going left when he sensed momentary confusion in the defense. The defender raced to cut off his drive, but Bell slipped around him, planted just outside of the paint and used his left hand to float a shot against his momentum taking him behind the backboard. The shot never touched the rim, swishing through the net to spark a 9-1 run WSU used to win the game.
For many, such a high degree of difficulty on an off-balanced shot wouldn’t be worth the risk. For Bell, he has the green light for any shot with his left hand when he’s going left.
“I just really, really trust my left hand,” Bell said with a grin. “I’ve gone that way my whole life. It’s just super instinctual for me. Whenever I get in situations like that where it’s a tight fit, I just trust it more than anything.”
“Honestly, if X goes left, then I think he can make any shot possible,” WSU teammate Ronnie DeGray III added.
Bell is averaging a team-high 14.7 points on career-best efficiency (106 offensive rating) this season and unlike last year, where a strong start fizzled out in conference play, he has actually increased his scoring (16 points per game) against AAC competition this season and maintained solid efficiency (104.7 offensive rating) while shouldering a large load (26.8 usage rate). Notably, Bell is shooting 88% from the foul line in AAC play and knocking down 35.3% of his 3-pointers.
For comparison, Bell is scoring more efficiently than other high-usage guards in recent Shocker past like Erik Stevenson (100.1 offensive rating in 2019-20), Alterique Gilbert (93.6 offensive rating in 2020-21) and Ricky Council IV (104.8 offensive rating in 2021-22) and is not far off of Craig Porter’s senior season (109 offensive rating).
“He’s pretty good when we can get him some room in order to get (to the basket),” WSU head coach Paul Mills said. “We try to disguise it in a number of different ways, but he does a good job. His ability to make shots without using the glass, it’s really rare. He can do it with his momentum going toward the baseline, so it’s not like he has to be on balance to make those. And that’s pretty impressive.”
There were numerous times in the USF game when Bell’s defender was shading him left, yet Bell found a way to still end up beating them to the left and finishing on the left side.
On one possession in the first half when his defender was trying to take away his left hand, Bell used a crossover dribble to attack the paint going to his right, used his physicality to bump the defender back, then executed a tight spin move back to his left and finished with his left hand over the contest.
“When everybody in the world knows you’re going left and you’re still able to do what everybody already knows,” Mills said earlier this season, “that’s a sign of a really good player.”
Another first-half possession saw Bell use a jab step to put his defender off balance, which allowed him to attack with a left-handed drive. The Bulls had a second defender waiting for Bell, but he tapped into his old football-playing days and carried the ball like a running back to split the pair of defenders. He then used his left hand to kiss the ball off the glass.
And then there are some plays where Bell will simply not be denied going to his left, no matter how hard the defender tries to cut him off. That was the case midway through the second half when Bell forced his way left, eventually turned the corner against his defender and then used his physicality to finish over an elite rim protector in USF’s Jamille Reynolds.
Afterward, USF coach Ben Fletcher was asked about how Bell continues to succeed when defenses know what’s coming.
“He just has tremendous quickness and he’s deceptive,” Fletcher said. “Our guards knew he wanted to drive left, but he kind of rock steps you. He’s so quick. I don’t think you realize it until you’re out there on the floor with him And then he does a really good job of side-stepping on different finishes around the rim. He’s definitely one of the best finishers in our league and he’s cat quick.”
Wichita State vs. UTSA basketball preview
Records: WSU 13-10, 3-7 AAC; UTSA 10-13, 4-7 AAC
When: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Koch Arena (10,506), Wichita
How to watch: ESPN+ (Shane Dennis with Bob Hull)
Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM (Mike Kennedy with Dave Dahl)
Series history: WSU leads 3-1 (3-0 in Wichita)
Betting line: No odds yet
KenPom says: WSU 81, UTSA 74
This story was originally published February 11, 2025 at 9:58 AM.
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