How Wichita State basketball returned to roots of defense, rebounding to win games
It wasn’t long ago when the Wichita State men’s basketball program collected ugly wins like badges of honor.
Cold shooting night? It didn’t matter because WSU’s defense and rebounding were good enough to cover up for any offensive shortcomings.
That’s the exact formula the Shockers have used to reel off their first 3-game winning streak in American Athletic Conference play since 2021, which was secured with a 69-64 victory over UTSA at Koch Arena on Wednesday.
WSU turned the ball over 20 times and shot just 41% from the field, but still won because it dominated the glass and limited a potent offense to just 0.89 points per possession.
“If that was a beauty pageant, we would not take home any prizes,” WSU head coach Paul Mills said after Wednesday’s game.
After a 1-7 start in conference play, WSU hasn’t turned around its season with a offense that hums and pumps out points at an extraordinary level. In fact, WSU’s offensive efficiency has barely moved from its 1-7 start to its current 3-game winning streak.
Without a stellar offense, WSU isn’t going to blow anybody out, which means the team has to find other ways to win. The Shockers have begun to embrace the art of winning “ugly,” which relies on a defense that forces enough misses and then a gang rebounding effort to control the glass.
The past three games have proven WSU doesn’t need an elite offense to gut out victories.
“Players have to know that there is a way to win every game, even when things aren’t flowing in a way that you hope,” Mills said. “There’s value in that. You prefer an ugly win versus something that looks cleaner and you’re on the wrong side of the scoreboard.”
The most notable difference from WSU’s 1-7 start and current 3-game winning streak is in the team’s 3-point defense. The Shockers were being consistently wrecked beyond the arc, as opponents were making better than 10 threes and shooting 44% on average when the losses were piling up.
But in WSU’s last three games, all wins, opponents are averaging just 5.3 threes per game on a 23.2% clip.
Some of that is luck, like on Wednesday when UTSA shot just 1-of-8 on 3-pointers in transition — to highlight one of its worst transition performances of the season. The Roadrunners entered as the AAC’s top 3-point shooting team and drilled 15 triples against WSU in San Antonio last month, but struggled through a 6-of-24 performance in Wichita.
But WSU has done a better job of staying attached to shooters and closing out on shots to make for good contests.
“It starts every day at practice,” WSU senior A.J. McGinnis said. “I think we’ve adopted some better habits altogether as a team, like communicating more and talking more and just looking out for each other.”
That togetherness was tested in a major way by the rocky play in January, which saw WSU tumble all the way to the bottom of the conference standings.
Following the 13-point loss in San Antonio on Jan. 11, the team stayed in the locker room for nearly an hour in a “come-to-Jesus” meeting. While that seemed to improve the effort, the results didn’t change much. After a home win over last-place Charlotte, WSU lost four straight.
But the player’s commitment to each other and to the team never wavered.
“I honestly don’t think it was that tough to stay together,” WSU senior Harlond Beverly said. “It was tougher to make the adjustments and understand where we were falling short and to be honest with ourselves. But we have a really old group. A lot of us have been through successful seasons, losing seasons. Also this is the last season for a lot of us, so the staying-together part wasn’t really that hard for us because we don’t want to go out with a bad season as seniors.”
There’s no question WSU is a flawed team with limited spacing due to its poor outside shooting and shaky ball-handling. That makes for rollercoaster rides at times on offense, like on Wednesday when the Shockers turned the ball over five times on their first eight trips up the floor. Or in the second half when WSU committed three turnovers in less than a minute during one stretch and four turnovers in a minute during another stretch.
To WSU’s credit, the players have managed to keep a next-play mentality and not allow their mistakes to affect them. The perfect example on Wednesday was senior Xavier Bell, who struggled mightily for most of the game with a career-high seven turnovers and 3-of-13 shooting performance, but stepped up down the stretch to hit a key 3-pointer that helped the Shockers win.
“That just puts the spotlight on how close we are and how much we play as a team,” said forward Corey Washington, who delivered a double-double of 17 points and 12 rebounds against UTSA. “We just keep playing. Things go wrong, we mess up some things, but we just keep playing. That really helps.”
“If people were in here watching film with us and hear players comment and stand up and take ownership, you knew that there was this shift,” Mills said. “And there needed to be a shift mentally before it was ever going to translate on the court.
Another factor in WSU’s turnaround has been the team embracing a return to the program’s roots of dominant rebounding.
After racking up 19 offensive rebounds and out-rebounding South Florida by 20, WSU followed that up with a season-high 50 rebounds, including 16 offensive, and a plus-21 advantage on the glass against UTSA.
During the 3-game winning streak, WSU has retrieved 40.6% of its own misses, which would rank No. 2 in the country for season-long offensive rebound rate, and has boarded out at 83.8% on the defensive end, which would rank No. 1 in the country for season-long defensive rebound rate.
“That’s really how we started off the season,” Beverly added. “I remember going back and watching our earlier games. It wasn’t always the prettiest games, but we found a way. We had 16 o-boards (Wednesday) and that’s how we were playing at the beginning of the season. I feel like we’re playing really tough basketball right now and it’s paying off.”
While WSU is beginning to learn how to grind out wins, it should be noted all three of its recent victories have come against teams in the bottom half of the conference standings.
Their grind-it-out method will be put to the test in the team’s upcoming 5-game stretch where the Shockers will play each of the top five teams currently in the conference standings, beginning with Sunday’s 11 a.m. showdown against No. 14-ranked Memphis on a ESPN broadcast.
“A lot of times, the players are talking through (adjustments during timeouts) and I don’t really have to add much,” Mills said. “They’re saying the things that need to get done. You ask them, ‘Tell me what you’re seeing’ and the fact that they can course-correct on their own really helps and it does give them confidence.
“The other thing it does is give them a voice. And you have to have a voice. This has to be player-led. It can’t be coach-driven.”
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This story was originally published February 13, 2025 at 7:05 AM.
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