Wichita State basketball feels progress and pain in Saint Mary’s loss
It has been a long time since the gap between where Wichita State is and where it wants to be has felt as small as it did Wednesday night in the Bahamas.
The Shockers traded blows with undefeated Saint Mary’s, smothered one of the nation’s most efficient offenses and even surged ahead in the final 90 seconds.
But the same sliver-thin mistakes that have shadowed WSU resurfaced in a 70-65 loss at Imperial Arena, turning what could have been the program’s best win in the Paul Mills era into another reminder of how close this team is to a signature moment.
“We have to win the rebound battle and we have to win the turnover battle,” Mills said. “If you lose two, it’s probably going to be a pretty tough night.”
Wichita State lost both. And it lost the game.
How Wichita State engineered its comeback
Down 62-54 with 4:45 remaining, the Shockers authored their best stretch of basketball away from Koch Arena in years.
Saint Mary’s had been mowing down opponents back home with the nation’s No. 1 3-point attack. But in crunch time, WSU held the Gaels without a field goal (and just two points) for six consecutive possessions with its backs against the wall.
The comeback started with Kenyon Giles, who detonated with back-to-back 3s in a span of 30 seconds to cut an eight-point deficit down to two. He was just 3-for-12 shooting before catching fire.
“In those late moments, it doesn’t really matter how the game is going,” Giles said. “If I’m not aggressive at the end of the game, I’m cheating my teammates and my coaches.”
To take the lead, Mills dialed up a disguised play to free up Dre Kindell for a wide-open 3 to take a 65-64 lead with 1:14 left, the crescendo of an 11–2 run.
Was WSU happy with its final shots?
WSU’s time in control proved to be brief, as Saint Mary’s immediately reclaimed the lead on a Joshua Dent floater.
Mills went right back to the same late-game action, trusting Giles — the team’s star and closer — to make the read.
This time when Giles came off the screen, he saw the Saint Mary’s help defender was late. Even though he was five feet beyond the arc, Giles did not hesitate to let it fly early in the clock.
Some may quibble with the decision to pull from so deep early in the shot clock when WSU was only down one. But Giles has a track record of hitting logo 3s and WSU clearly trusts him to make the decision with the ball in his hands.
“He had just made two, so that’s the right play,” Mills said.
Giles did not waver either.
“I work on that shot, I just missed it,” he said. “Obviously, I really wanted to make that shot. I can live with it. (The help) was late, I’ve just got to make it.”
And his teammates? They never doubted him.
“Those are the shots that he hits on us in practice, so when he does it against competition, it’s nothing new,” guard T.J. Williams said. “We see it every day. We trust him. So put the ball in his hands and he usually hits those shots.”
WSU still had a chance to tie in the closing seconds. Coming out of a timeout, the Shockers freed Mike Gray Jr. off a screen for a clean catch. Gray took a hard dribble toward the lane, retreated and launched a contested step-back 3, which clanged off the front rim.
“You kind of wish you would have got to the paint and probably sprayed it out,” Mills said. “But we had chances.”
WSU certainly had its chances, which can be seen as an encouraging marker of growth, but also a frustrating truth to sit with.
The little things that kept WSU from beating Saint Mary’s
For all the late-game drama, WSU’s defense once again put it in position to beat a top-25 caliber opponent.
The Shockers limited Saint Mary’s to 1.06 points per possession, by far their lowest output of the season. And the nation’s most dangerous 3-point attack? It finished just 2-for-16 beyond the arc and shot just 39% overall.
But in the two areas where Mills was adamant WSU had to win in the scouting report — second-chance points and turnovers — WSU came up empty. Saint Mary’s won second-chance points 13-8 and the turnover battle 13-9.
One key late-game possession came after Will Berg, who provided important defense late in the game, came down with an offensive rebound, only to throw a kick-out pass well over a teammate’s head. A winning opportunity became an empty possession.
Or take the rebound that wasn’t. After forcing one last Saint Mary’s miss from deep in the final 30 seconds, the Shockers were one defensive rebound away from having the ball, down one, with everything in front of them. Instead, the long rebound bounced between Berg and Saint Mary’s forward Paulius Murauskas, both dove and the ball squirted free to Dent, who was fouled and made both free throws for a 68-65 lead.
Rewind the film a bit earlier and another example of the razor-thin margin between winning and losing emerged.
Right after Giles surged the Shockers back into the game, Kindell’s over-eager defense on the perimeter put an elite free-throw shooter on the line for two free throws — the Gaels’ only points during WSU’s rally. Kindell was pivotal in WSU’s comeback, but the needless foul was an example of a tiny detail that can be cleaned up.
Those are the types of plays that continue to separate WSU from winning the tight games it keeps finding itself in against quality opponents.
“You’re in a battle and there’s some discipline that we need to make sure that we’re doing,” Mills said. “We had some fouls that gave those guys free-throw opportunities when it was just unnecessary at that particular point of the game.”
A November loss with March value for Shockers
For all the sting, WSU walks away with evidence of real progress.
Saint Mary’s is exactly the type of disciplined, physical, veteran team that exposes every crack.
“This is why you play these games in November, so you have a team that’s ready for March,” Mills said.
On Wednesday, Wichita State showed it can stand toe-to-toe with a great team. It showed improvement. It showed heart. It showed it belongs.
Now it has to show something else: that it can finish.
This story was originally published November 27, 2025 at 8:23 AM.
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