AfterShocks rally for Game 3 win, set up Sunflower Showdown with KU alumni
The AfterShocks’ season — and perhaps the future of the Wichita State alumni team — hung in the air for one more agonizing moment Friday night.
Marcus Keene’s potential game-winning 3-pointer bounced off the rim. But the rebound stayed alive, the ball found Q.J. Peterson alone on the wing and the AfterShocks’ last-minute addition buried the shot that saved their bid for another championship.
Peterson scored all nine of the AfterShocks’ points during the Elam Ending, including the clinching 3, to complete a stirring comeback from a 12-point deficit and deliver a 73-67 victory over the Enchantment in the decisive third game of a thrilling opening-round series at Koch Arena.
After looking tight and tentative for much of the first half, the defending champions finally played with the urgency their circumstances demanded. Keene scored 12 points in the third quarter to erase the deficit, then Peterson took over when the game reached its target-score finish.
The victory advanced the AfterShocks to an alumni-bracket semifinal against JHX Hoops, the Kansas alumni team led by former national player of the year Frank Mason. That highly anticipated matchup will tip off at 8 p.m. Monday at Koch Arena with a spot in TBT’s Final Four on the line.
It also assured the AfterShocks that Friday would not be their final appearance together.
That possibility felt uncomfortably real entering Game 3. The group had been uncertain about returning this summer, and with many members of its veteran core approaching 30 or already on the other side of it, another run next year is hardly guaranteed.
A loss would have ended more than the AfterShocks’ attempt to become the first repeat TBT champion in nearly a decade. It could have brought their remarkable run together to an abrupt conclusion.
Instead, they found a way to extend it.
Enchantment played like a team with nothing to lose
While the AfterShocks carried the burden of expectations, the Enchantment played with the freedom of a team that had already proved it belonged.
The New Mexico alumni had uncovered something during an otherwise lopsided loss in Monday’s series opener, erupting for 40 points in the fourth quarter. That confidence carried into Thursday, when Vance Jackson made seven 3-pointers and scored 29 points in a stunning 74-68 victory.
The Enchantment repeatedly punished the AfterShocks with Jackson, while 17 WSU turnovers led to 21 points and handed the alumni team just its third loss in 22 games at Koch Arena over the last six summers.
The confidence carried over again Friday.
The Enchantment made five of its first seven 3-pointers and raced to a 23-11 advantage late in the first quarter. Even while operating with a seven-player rotation that included one player competing with a broken hand, the visitors played loose, connected and fearless.
The contrast was unmistakable. The Enchantment had nothing to lose and everything to gain. The AfterShocks looked like a defending champion feeling the weight of its title and the target that came with it.
No sequence captured that tension better than the end of the first half.
The AfterShocks had the opportunity to hold for the final shot but committed a sloppy turnover, their 10th of the half. The Enchantment capitalized by drilling its seventh 3-pointer at the buzzer for a 38-31 lead.
At halftime, New Mexico held a 21-0 scoring advantage from beyond the arc.
Marcus Keene changed the game
The AfterShocks still trailed 43-35 in the third quarter when Keene decided it was time to take control.
First came a driving layup. Then a 3-pointer that brought a small but boisterous Koch Arena crowd roaring back into the game and forced the Enchantment to call timeout.
The break did nothing to slow him.
Keene buried the game-tying 3 with 3:55 remaining in the quarter, then struck again with a jumper 28 seconds later that gave the AfterShocks their first lead of the night, 48-46.
He had scored 10 consecutive points to complete a climb that had taken the better part of three quarters. Keene finished with 12 points in the period, propelling the AfterShocks to a 55-51 advantage entering the fourth.
But the Enchantment refused to fade.
Every time the AfterShocks appeared ready to create separation, New Mexico responded with another momentum-altering 3. When Markis McDuffie finished a transition layup for a 64-59 lead with the Elam Ending approaching, K.J. Jenkins answered from deep.
The AfterShocks called timeout with a 64-62 lead, establishing a target score of 72.
Nine points separated them from Monday night — and at least one more game together.
Q.J. Peterson delivers when the game was on the line
Peterson had been a late addition to the AfterShocks’ roster, but when their season reached its most important stretch, he became their only scorer.
He opened the Elam Ending with a three-point play, then buried a 3-pointer that pushed the lead to 70-62 and moved the AfterShocks within one basket of advancing.
Predictably, the Enchantment had one final response.
New Mexico scored five straight points to pull within 70-67, turning what had briefly felt like a comfortable finish into a tense scramble. The AfterShocks received several opportunities to end it but could not convert.
Finally, Keene launched a potential winner from beyond the arc. His shot missed, but the. AfterShocks kept the rebound alive and worked the ball to Peterson, left wide open on the wing.
This time, there was no rebound to chase.
Peterson’s 3 swished through the net for the 73-67 victory, ending a stirring series that demanded far more from the defending champions than anyone might have expected after their blowout win in Game 1.
The Enchantment left Wichita without advancing, but not without earning admiration. Short-handed and outmanned, the New Mexico alumni pushed the reigning champions to the brink behind their shooting, effort and resilience.
The AfterShocks survived all of it.
KU alumni and Frank Mason coming to Koch Arena
Their reward is one of the most anticipated alumni matchups Koch Arena has hosted.
JHX Hoops will arrive Monday with Mason, the former Kansas star whose decorated college career included consensus national player of the year honors in 2017. The winner will advance to TBT’s Final Four.
The AfterShocks will also have a rooting interest in the other side of the bracket.
Kentucky alumni team La Familia ranks ahead of the AfterShocks in TBT’s hosting order. If both teams advance, the AfterShocks would have to travel to Lexington, Ky., and attempt something they have never accomplished: winning a TBT game outside Koch Arena.
A victory by Boeheim’s Army, the Syracuse alumni team, would open a path for the AfterShocks to remain home for the rest of the tournament. They would host Syracuse in the next round and could host the championship game if they advanced to the final, recreating the all-Wichita route that helped fuel last summer’s title run.
Since returning from the pandemic under coach Zach Bush, the AfterShocks are 19-3 inside the Roundhouse.
They came perilously close Friday to seeing that run — and perhaps this entire era — end there.
Instead, Peterson’s 3 gave them another game, another marquee night at Koch Arena and another chance to defend their championship.
This story was originally published July 24, 2026 at 10:05 PM with the headline "AfterShocks rally for Game 3 win, set up Sunflower Showdown with KU alumni."
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