‘This is basketball in March’: What went wrong for Shockers on final play in UNT loss
Sometimes in March, you only have one shot and you have to make it count.
The Wichita State men’s basketball team squandered that chance on Monday in Denton, as it fell short in a 68-66 loss to North Texas at the Super Pit
It only cost the Shockers one game on Monday, but it won’t be much longer before execution will be a necessity with their season on the line.
“We need to find a way to win these gritty games,” WSU head coach Paul Mills said in his post-game radio interview. “We need to find a way to win games where there’s a lot of contact and you need to be able to fight through it and find a way.”
WSU showed a tremendous amount of resolve on Monday to battle back from an early 12-point deficit to open up a second-half lead. And again to earn a chance for a tie or a win at the buzzer after falling behind by six in the final two minutes.
But after a timeout with 7.9 seconds left, WSU’s final possession ended in a half-court heave by Corey Washington.
So what went wrong for the Shockers on their one and only chance?
It seemed to be a case of a good play design gone wrong with bad timing, which was likely the result of a team trying to execute a new play on the fly in a high-pressure situation. It’s also important to point out that Mills was working with a 30-second timeout to draw up the play, which could have played a role in the communication breakdown.
The plan was to create space for leading scorer Xavier Bell to drive downhill going to his left and then crash the glass. But when Bell crossed half court and began to attack down the left side, he ran straight into oncoming traffic. At first glance, it almost seemed like North Texas snuffed out exactly what WSU wanted to do and Rondel Walker was there to stonewall Bell before he could turn the corner.
In reality, it was a self-created traffic jam by the Shockers.
Ideally, Harlond Beverly would have already exited from the left side of the floor by the time Bell crossed half court. Instead, the timing of the off-ball action and the drive by Bell were not synchronized — likely the result of the limited time in the huddle. So when Bell was almost ready to turn the corner at the 3-point line, Beverly was just cutting across and actually dragged his defender, Walker, straight to where Bell was trying to go and that’s what blew the play up.
“We wanted X having the opportunity to go left, but we got a little confused there with personnel and ended up bringing more traffic over there,” Mills said in his radio interview. “Unfortunately, we got too congested there. We didn’t have another timeout, but we needed to take a longer timeout to clarify from a personnel standpoint. We just got way too congested. You’ve got to get a shot up on that play.”
WSU will never know what the end result would have been if it properly executed its final play. It’s entirely possible that the Shockers could have come up empty all the same with a better look that still missed at the buzzer. And not even a made 2-pointer would have guaranteed a different fate for WSU, only five more minutes on the court.
But the opportunity to extend the game was certainly there with Bell, who actually crossed up his defender, Jasper Floyd, with an in-and-out dribble that would have allowed him to turn the corner and lift a potential game-tying floater with his trusty left hand — if not for running into a traffic jam that impeded his progress.
Confusion ensued once Bell was triple teamed on the left side. Washington cut when Bell thought he was coming toward the ball and that miscommunication forced Washington to retrieve the ball all the way back at half court. His prayer from 40-plus feet was well short.
“We just didn’t have some things go our way,” Mills said in his radio interview. “There are some plays here and there that if they go a little bit differently, then the outcome puts us in a different light.”
That’s the story of March: sometimes you only get one chance and you have to make the most of it.
On Monday, the Shockers came up short.
“This is basketball in March,” North Texas coach Ross Hodge said. “This is what it feels like.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2025 at 5:01 AM.
.jpg)