Shocker takeaways: Bench fall-off too steep to overcome in Oklahoma State NIT loss
Given the circumstances — no time to so much as practice — the Wichita State men’s basketball team turned in a resilient effort on the road in a game against a Big 12 opponent on Tuesday night.
But in the end, the Shockers couldn’t keep up with Oklahoma State in a season-ending — this time for real — 89-79 loss to the Cowboys at Gallagher-Iba Arena in the opening round of the National Invitation Tournament.
WSU’s starting five played well enough, but its bench couldn’t deliver enough production and the defense leaked 89 points. The Shockers finished their 2024-25 campaign with a 19-15 record while OSU (16-17) advanced to the NIT second round to face either SMU or Northern Iowa later this week.
Wichita native Xavier Bell became the 49th WSU player to score 1,000 career points as a Shockers with a game-high 24 points, while Corey Washington (21 points, 11 rebounds) and Quincy Ballard (19 points, 15 rebounds) both notched double-doubles. OSU was led by 23 points by senior Bryce Thompson.
Here are three takeaways from the game:
1. Too many bad things happened when WSU’s bench played
When the majority of Wichita State’s starting lineup of Bijan Cortes, Xavier Bell, Corey Washington, Ronnie DeGray III and Quincy Ballard were on the floor, the Shockers fared well against their Big 12 foe.
But as soon as WSU head coach Paul Mills dipped into his bench, too many bad things happened.
Among the four bench players, WSU lost the 10 minutes played by point guard Justin Hill by 23 points and the 14 minutes played by guard Harlond Beverly by 29 points. WSU was also a minus-9 in Matej Bosnjak’s eight minutes and a minus-10 in A.J. McGinnis’ seven minutes. OSU outscored WSU 31-10 in bench points.
Despite an ice-cold 1-of-12 showing from the field, the game changed the most when Cortes (nine assists) was running the offense. The Shockers won the 30 minutes he played by 13 points, yet the lost the game double-digits because they were pounded by an astounding 23 points in the 10 minutes he was on the bench.
“You can’t give up 89 points and win a basketball game anyway,” Mills said. “So it didn’t really matter about the drop off. And I don’t think I’ll watch the film to figure out the diagnosis of this one. It was just great to have the opportunity to play.”
2. Wichita State erased a 15-point deficit to take lead
After falling behind by 15 points on the road in the first half, rolling over would have been the easy thing for the Shockers to do.
But WSU showed some resilience by working its way back in the game, courtesy of a 13-3 run to end the first half and then a 7-0 spark in the opening two minutes of the second half.
In less than six minutes of game time, the Shockers went from down 15 to up 42-40 when Xavier Bell canned a wing 3-pointer in transition — much to the delight of the sizable contingent of Shocker fans who made the 2-hour drive to Stillwater.
WSU actually played the Cowboys even, trading bucket for bucket with them until the 13-minute mark of the second half when the Shockers finally lost steam. OSU opened up a double-digit once again with a 15-2 run.
The Shockers made one last run, with a Ronnie DeGray III corner 3 trimming the deficit to eight, at 79-71, with 4:22 to play.
But in the end, losing the rebounding battle, 46-42, and the turnover battle, 11-8, was too much for WSU to overcome.
3. A bad 9 minutes cost the Shockers in the first half
Besides a first-shot airball, WSU showed little rust with its starting unit and built a 16-10 lead early. But once the starters exited the game, Oklahoma State took advantage.
During an extended run that lasted nine minutes, the Cowboys pounded the Shockers 27-6 to open up a 15-point lead with 4:42 left until halftime.
WSU avoided a major disaster by clawing its way back in the final four minutes, piecing together a 13-3 run of its own. Fueled by seven points from Xavier Bell and a pair of dunks by Quincy Ballard, the late first-half rally whittled the deficit to five, 40-35, by halftime.
After giving up an American Athletic Conference tournament-record 42 points to Memphis’ P.J. Haggerty in their last game, the Shockers allowed OSU super-senior Bryce Thompson to score 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting in the first half. WSU’s bench was outscored 11-0 in the first 20 minutes, as well.
This story was originally published March 18, 2025 at 10:12 PM.
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