Without its best, Wichita State found toughness that was once missing to win at Rice
Dejected after yet another close loss in the American Athletic Conference, a first-year head coach sat at the podium and explained the process of learning how to win.
On Thursday night, it was Rice head coach Rob Lanier who lamented what his team lacked down the stretch of a 63-59 loss to Wichita State at Tudor Fieldhouse. It was the Owls’ 10th conference loss by six points or fewer, as they finished the regular season with a 4-14 record in AAC play.
“We just didn’t have the requisite toughness that it takes to win these kinds of games,” Lanier said. “We’re imperfect offensively in terms of the pieces that we have, so we have to mitigate that through a level of toughness and defense and rebounding. Without that, we’re going to be in close games and fall short.”
Sound familiar? That was the same message from WSU head coach Paul Mills just last season when the Shockers lost so many games down the stretch and finished in the cellar of the conference.
Thursday’s victory was far from WSU’s best, evident by 38% shooting from the offense, but it was a testament to the team’s growth in learning how to grind out wins without flashy offense. The Shockers are 7-2 in their last nine games with four of those wins coming on the road, a marked improvement after wilting so many times away from home last season.
“What happens with good basketball teams and veteran basketball teams is that they’re not going to hang their heads and let one bad play lead to another,” Mills said. “In order to get back to our winning ways, we had to be locked in to winning plays. I thought you saw us make winning play after winning play. It didn’t always convert to a score, but it did convert to opportunities around the rim that I’m confident we will finish moving forward.”
It didn’t matter that WSU missed 12 shots in a row and went 6-plus minutes without a field goal down the stretch of a close game on the road. The Shockers managed to always stay in the lead because of their defense and rebounding.
In the signs of toughness that Lanier desired from his own team, WSU committed just one turnover after halftime, held Rice to 10 points on its final 16 possessions and dominated the rebounding battle in the second half.
“It’s all about resiliency,” said WSU senior Ronnie DeGray III, who collected a career-high 16 rebounds. “It’s March, we’ve got to find ways to get it done, no matter how it looks like. We weren’t scoring, but neither were they. We take pride when shots aren’t falling, we still get stops to win the game.”
The Shockers have not always possessed that level of mental toughness to absorb a poor offensive showing and still stay play good defense. It takes a different caliber of focus to miss shots that typically go in and not allow it affect the defense at the other end.
WSU displayed that level of resilience on Thursday when its offense went missing (2 for 16 shooting) down the stretch, but its defense held Rice to 2-for-13 shooting in the final nine minutes. The Shockers walled off Rice from the lane, which left the Owls spraying contested misses on jump shots. An Eagle film study showed WSU contested 9 of Rice’s 11 first-shots down the stretch and forced 10 misses — the only make came with 1.7 seconds left on a goaltending call.
“We’re not going to be a shot-making team,” Mills said. “And when a team is just going under every screen and plugging that much, you can start to feel guys get a little bit tighter about it. If we can win the rebounding margin and the turnover margin, then we’re going to have a good chance.”
After being slightly edged by Rice on the glass in the first half, Mills demanded his crashers — DeGray, Quincy Ballard and Corey Washington — change that after halftime.
They responded in a big way, as the Shockers dominated the rebounding battle (plus-11) in the second half. They boarded out at a 79% rate (up from 65% in the first half) and retrieved 50% of their own misses (up from 29%) in the second half. DeGray was especially active on the glass, securing 12 of his 16 rebounds after halftime.
“We say it all the time, ‘We don’t know unless you go,’ and I bet you when we grade this film, you’ll see Ronnie go close to 100% of the time,” Mills said. “He’s got a nose for it. Given how thick he is and the size of him, he has a lot of mobility. He does a really good job of being able to track that stuff down with two hands.”
Given WSU’s 18 offensive rebounds, it was actually a bit underwhelming for the team to only generate 15 second-chance points. In fact, the Shockers came up empty on all six of their second chances in the final five minutes.
It wasn’t that long ago when the Shockers wouldn’t have been able to survive so many missed opportunities. For reference, WSU was 0-10 in AAC games last season when its offense scored at 1.01 points per possession or fewer.
On Thursday, the Shockers won on the road with an offense that generated just 0.98 points per possession.
“It’s super big for us,” said WSU senior Harlond Beverly, who scored a team-high 16 points off the bench. “You want to have as much momentum going into the conference tournament as possible. We just had to find a way to win this one and now hopefully we can do it again on Sunday and just keep this thing rolling.”
This story was originally published March 7, 2025 at 5:01 AM.
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