Wichita State thought it had a miracle. A whistle erased it. Was it right call?
For just a moment Wednesday evening, Koch Arena erupted in disbelief-turned-delirium.
Mike Gray Jr.’s corner 3 splashed cleanly through the net with 5.6 seconds left and what remained of the Wichita State crowd believed it had just witnessed the improbable: a four-point play that could steal a win from the jaws of another brutal loss.
Then the whistle caught up to the moment.
Referee Bharat Ramnanan waved off the basket while the ball was still in the air, ruling that Rice defender Nick Anderson fouled Gray on the catch and before the upward shooting motion had begun. The celebration dissolved into an uproar, followed by boos that lingered even after the final horn as officials ran off the floor.
That ruling became the defining moment in Wichita State’s 66-64 loss to Rice, a judgment call that overshadowed everything else but did not excuse how the Shockers arrived there.
WSU trailed by three when it forced Rice into an inbounds turnover with 6.4 seconds left, giving itself a final chance. Replay appeared to show the ball deflecting off Karon Boyd’s knee out of bounds, but because Rice had already lost a challenge earlier in the game, the Owls were unable to review the call.
The Shockers went back to a familiar sideline out-of-bounds set. Boyd inbounded to Gray curling off a screen toward the right corner with Anderson trailing close behind. Gray caught the ball, turned and rose immediately. Contact came on the catch and the whistle followed — after the shot was in the air, which is what gave fans hope.
The officiating crew conferred briefly, but Ramnanan’s ruling stood: foul on the floor.
“I felt like it was a (shooting) foul, but the refs called it off,” Gray said. “We can’t let it come down to that last play.”
Under the NCAA’s new continuous motion rule this season, a basket can count only if the shooter has begun the upward motion after ending the dribble. In this case, the foul was ruled to have occurred on the catch, before that shooting motion began.
“No,” WSU head coach Paul Mills said when asked if he thought Gray’s shot should have counted. “After review, I thought they got it right.”
Gray made the first free throw to cut the deficit to 66-64, then intentionally missed the second and the rebound hit the floor. WSU couldn’t secure it, however, as Rice was fouled, missed again, then the Shockers were left with a 70-foot heave that fell harmlessly out of bounds.
Lost beneath the controversy was the 40 missed shots and 29% shooting from the field — self-inflicted wounds that put the Shockers in such a predicament against a team they were favored to beat by 12.5 points.
Gray matched his career-high with 25 points, shooting 12 of 14 from the line and adding a career-high 10 rebounds for his first double-double. It was the lone bright spot in an otherwise ugly performance.
The Shockers dropped to 9-7 overall and 1-2 in the American Conference, losing a second straight game to a team projected to finish near the bottom of the league.
As loud as the boos were for the officials afterward, the hard truth about these Shockers remained unchanged: a double-digit home favorite shouldn’t allow its fate to rest on a judgment call in the final seconds.
And on a night filled with frustration, WSU’s most damaging mistakes came long before the whistle anyone will remember.
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