How Wichita State learned from past mistakes to battle back for OT win at USF
Wichita State had every reason to fold Sunday afternoon in Tampa.
The scar tissue from a beatdown three nights earlier was still raw. The environment inside the Yuengling Center was hostile, the opponent widely regarded as one of the American Conference’s best. And by early in the second half, the Shockers were staring down a double-digit deficit that threatened to bury them.
Instead of cracking, Wichita State pushed back.
In a moment that demanded resolve, the Shockers showed they still possess the character required to win difficult games away from home. After surrendering a 15-point lead, enduring a 28-point swing and falling behind by as many as 13, WSU clawed its way to an 86-85 overtime victory over South Florida.
It does not erase past mistakes, but for a team searching for progress, Sunday offered a meaningful sign of growth.
“We have character,” coach Paul Mills said. “If you have character, you have endurance. If you have endurance, you have hope. I know there’s a lot of people who go through life living under a rain cloud, but we don’t have that with this group. We don’t have ‘Negative Nancys.’ We have a group of character.”
The win lifted WSU to 11-8 overall and 3-3 in conference play, its best start in five years, while USF (11-7, 3-2 American) had its three-game win streak snapped. More importantly, it served as a rebuttal to the doubts lingering after Thursday’s lopsided loss at Florida Atlantic.
Afterward, Mills insisted the setback never lingered internally. Once Thursday’s game ended, players moved forward.
“I just thought we were excited to play this game,” Mills said. “That’s what competitors do.”
That mindset was evident early, as WSU stormed out to a 30-15 lead in the first 11 minutes. When the Bulls responded, outscoring WSU by 28 points over a 10-minute stretch, the Shockers refused to splinter again.
The most revealing stretch came late in regulation. Trailing 73-67 with less than four minutes left, WSU stacked three straight defensive stops — a “kill” in coaching terminology — and turned each one into offense. Kenyon Giles drilled a momentum-swinging 3 in transition, followed by a layup from Mike Gray Jr. that put the Shockers ahead with a 7-0 run.
That ability to turn defense into offense signaled a return to the identity WSU has shown when it is at its most effective.
“We came together as a team, we talked about it, what we needed to fix, and then went out there and fixed it,” senior Karon Boyd said. “It was more about focusing on us and not as much to do with the other team.”
When Will Berg’s potential game-winner at the end of regulation bounced off, the response from WSU revealed just how much the team has grown.
There were no slumped shoulders, no stunned stares. Instead, the bench exploded with energy. Teammates rushed to Berg with encouragement. Dre Kindell bounced onto the floor, visibly thrilled at the chance to play five more minutes.
It was a stark contrast from the Shockers’ last overtime experience earlier this month in Charlotte when visible frustration and sagging body language followed a blown lead.
“I didn’t think we had the body language that was necessary in order to win when you’re in a fight like that,” Mills said. “Look at our guys’ response (today). It was like, ‘You’re going to give us five more minutes to prove ourselves? We’ll take it.’”
That change was not a coincidence. Mills said the Charlotte loss became a teaching point — one he challenged his team, from coaches to players, to learn from.
“Coach said it in the huddle, ‘We learn from Charlotte,’” Giles said. “We were excited to go to overtime this time. We attacked overtime. And we got the win, so we learned from it. We’re learning, that’s all I can say.”
Overtime became a referendum on toughness and WSU dominated it. After surrendering 16 offensive rebounds in regulation, the Shockers flipped the script entirely in overtime. USF failed to secure a single offensive rebound in the extra period. WSU, meanwhile, tracked down seven of its 10 misses and controlled 11 of the 14 total rebound opportunities during the extra five minutes.
Berg authored the exclamation point.
Despite finishing just 2-for-7 from the field, Berg imposed himself defensively and on the glass. On the Bulls’ final possession, USF star Izaiyah Nelson tried to drive baseline for the go-ahead basket. Berg slid with him, cut off the angle and stood hid ground, walling Nelson off from the rim. Forced into desperation, Nelson flailed and scooped a shot that never touched iron. Berg then used 7-foot-2 frame to secure the rebound, his 15th of the night, to seal the stop and the victory.
“Credit to Wichita State,” USF coach Bryan Hodgson said. “They kicked our butt in the tough-guy stuff in overtime.”
After being held to a season-low two points on a season-low five shots, Giles bounced back with 22 points and the decisive blow on the scoreboard. His steal and layup with 20.5 seconds left in overtime swung the game for good.
To him, the win represented growth after the disappointing loss at FAU.
“Tough situations are how you learn,” Giles said. “That was a tough loss. But we can’t come out and forfeit the next two games because we had one bad loss. This ain’t no AAU. You have to move on and just learn from it.”
There are still plenty of lessons ahead. Giles acknowledged that WSU squandered momentum earlier this season after a marquee road win at UAB by dropping the next two games. The Shockers now return home with another chance to show that this time is different.
“We can learn from that,” Giles said. “We understand this conference is hard. There’s no easy wins. So every game, we’ve got to come out and be the most physical team on the floor.”
For Kindell, the shift was much emotional as tactical. During the two-day break between games in Florida, the message amongst the players centered on rediscovering joy.
“We talked a lot about just getting back to having fun,” Kindell said. “We’ve been doing this since we was kids. We just weren’t having fun. So we went into this game knowing we were going to come out with high energy and we were going to play together.”
That energy radiated from the bench and spilled onto the floor, particularly in overtime.
“When we start stacking those stops, the bench is feeding off of that and then the players on the court are feeding off that energy,” Kindell said. “It just keeps us going, seeing how high everybody is for those stops.”
If Sunday becomes a turning point, the Shockers could carve out a place near the top of a jumbled conference race. There is still a long road to March and plenty remains unresolved: execution lapses, rebounding consistency and the ability to sustain focus for all 40 minutes.
But in Tampa, against a projected contender and in the face of real adversity, WSU offered a glimpse of the team it is trying to become.
Sunday did not fix everything. It did, however, show that the foundation of toughness, belief and collective buy-in is still there to make a run.
This story was originally published January 19, 2026 at 7:01 AM.
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