Wichita State basketball stifled by South Florida in American title game loss
Wichita State left little doubt about its effort on Sunday afternoon.
The Shockers fought, scrapped and defended like a championship team in the American Conference tournament title game. They just couldn’t score like one.
In a bruising 70-55 loss to South Florida at Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama, Wichita State saw its seven-game winning streak end because its offense never found enough answers against the Bulls’ relentless defense.
“We definitely left it all out there, but we definitely had opportunities where we should have capitalized,” WSU senior Karon Boyd said. “You lose a game like that and you think about all of the plays where you could have made a difference, done something different there, change something there. But I’m really proud of this team and the effort and the resilience we’ve shown all year.”
The result denied the Shockers an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament, but it didn’t erase how close Wichita State had come to completing its March surge. In a title game that felt every bit as physical and tense as a meeting between the league’s two best should, South Florida proved to be the steadier, sharper team in the biggest moments.
WSU shot just 33.9% from the field, committed 14 turnovers and managed only 0.86 points per possession in one of its toughest offensive performances of the season. The Shockers were repeatedly knocked off rhythm by South Florida’s pressure and, when clean looks did come, too many of them failed to fall.
That was especially true for Wichita State star Kenyon Giles, who never got loose.
After torching opponents throughout Wichita State’s seven-game winning streak, Giles was bottled up by USF’s defense and finished with only five points on 2-of-11 shooting, including 1 of 7 from 3-point range. The Bulls made it clear from the opening tip that they were not going to let Giles beat them. Whenever Wichita State tried to free him with a screen, USF swarmed him with aggressive traps and blitzes, often forcing him to retreat all the way back toward halfcourt.
“I knew coming into a championship game, I didn’t think they were going to be soft and not try to touch me,” Giles said. “Shoutout to USF and to Wes Enis. They were really aggressive and it did bother me a little bit, but at the end of the day, I was just focused on trying to get the win as a team.”
The Shockers never fully solved the coverage in the first half. Giles did manage one of his trademark momentum plays just before halftime, drilling a deep 28-foot 3-pointer to keep Wichita State within striking distance. But outside of that, South Florida’s combination of physicality, ball pressure and off-ball denial kept WSU’s leading scorer from ever looking comfortable.
A major reason was South Florida guard Wes Enis, who changed the championship with his defense. Enis was attached to Giles throughout the afternoon, chasing him through screens, crowding him off the ball and making every catch and every dribble a chore. Then he piled on offensively, scoring a game-high 19 points to cap one of the best all-around performances of the day.
While Giles labored, Wichita State struggled to find enough playmaking elsewhere.
Against USF’s constant pressure, the Shockers’ lack of a true primary ball handler who could consistently break down the defense and make the Bulls pay became glaring. Too many possessions ended with WSU pushed late into the shot clock, trying to manufacture something difficult. Too many drives ended in traffic. Too many touches around the rim turned into missed chances.
Even so, WSU still hung around for much of the afternoon because it matched USF’s toughness.
The Shockers came into Sunday with one of the nation’s most dominant offensive rebounding streaks, but South Florida met that physicality head-on. Each team finished with 40 rebounds, but the Bulls had a 13-5 advantage in second-chance points. That was a big reason why WSU went into halftime trailing 33-26.
“Props to South Florida,” WSU head coach Paul Mills said. “We knew who won the rebounding battle would have a really good chance to win this game.”
And yet, for a few minutes after the break, it looked like WSU might have one more comeback left.
The Shockers opened the second half with their best stretch of the game, as Mike Gray Jr. and Dillon Battie combined to score all nine points during a 9-3 burst. Suddenly, the deficit was down to 36-35 less than three minutes into the half, and Wichita State had wrestled back the momentum.
That was the window.
Championship games often turn on tiny margins, and Wichita State had a series of chances right there to seize control. Emmanuel Okorafor had a point-blank attempt roll off the back iron. T.J. Williams missed at the rim. Karon Boyd got a clean look from 3 that would have tied the game, but it wouldn’t go. Then came a loose-ball rebound that felt as if it belonged to either team. South Florida grabbed it, kicked it out and found Enis for a 3-pointer.
In a matter of seconds, Wichita State went from threatening to tie the game to staring at a six-point deficit again.
There were still more than 13 minutes remaining, but that sequence captured the story of the afternoon. During its seven-game winning streak, WSU had thrived in those scramble moments. The Shockers had won on the margins, made the extra play and delivered the timely answer. On Sunday, against a USF team every bit as tough and connected, those margins swung the other way.
“We’ve been good (in the margins) all year, but we struggled and a lot of that had to do with them,” Mills said. “When you’re a top-five offensive rebounding team, you can’t go away from the basket. There’s a physical commitment that’s required in order to really impact a game like that. Their physicality really hampered us.”
Battie did what he could to keep Wichita State within reach. He led the Shockers with 15 points on an efficient 6-of-8 shooting while adding five rebounds. Will Berg also reached double figures with 10 points and six rebounds. Gray helped spark the early second-half rally, but Wichita State never found the balanced offensive punch it needed once South Florida tightened the screws again.
Eventually, the weight of carrying so much offensive frustration became too much.
Wichita State continued to compete defensively and never stopped battling, but the lack of reliable scoring finally broke the game open when South Florida went on the decisive 12-3 run midway through the second half. The surge stretched the Bulls’ lead to 57-44 and forced Wichita State coach Paul Mills to burn a timeout as the game began slipping away for good.
The Shockers never got back within single digits over the final eight minutes.
By then, it had become painfully clear this was not Wichita State’s day offensively. In the closing minutes, three different Shockers fired up air balls from beyond the arc, the kind of uncharacteristic misses that summed up a long and frustrating afternoon. Every shot seemed contested. Every possession seemed heavy. Every opening felt fleeting.
But this was not a team that shrank from the stage. The Shockers emptied the tank. They defended, rebounded competitively and kept throwing punches against the American’s hottest team. But South Florida was simply better at the details that decide March games. The Bulls defended with more precision, finished more plays and answered every Wichita State push.
“Sombody had to win and somebody had to lose,” WSU guard Mike Gray Jr. said. “USF was the better team today.”
South Florida, which split the regular-season series with Wichita State, won the rubber match with authority. The Bulls extended their winning streak to 11 games, improved to 25-8, completed a sweep of the American’s regular-season and tournament championships and earned a No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
For Wichita State, the loss dropped the Shockers to 22-11 and ended the program’s first trip to the American tournament championship game in heartbreak.
But it should not end their season.
The Shockers are expected to be a prime candidate to receive a bid to the National Invitation Tournament game when the 32-team field is announced later Sunday. That would likely send Wichita State to the NIT for the second straight season, only this time with a team that has shown over the last month it is capable of making a deeper run.
That, eventually, will become the next chapter.
On Sunday, though, all Wichita State could do was sit with the sting of being so close. The Shockers arrived at the title game looking like a team ready to punch its way into March Madness. Instead, they ran into a South Florida defense that choked off their offense, took away their star and made every inch of the floor feel crowded.
Wichita State gave a championship effort.
South Florida gave the championship performance.
This story was originally published March 15, 2026 at 4:49 PM.
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