Advantage at Koch Arena fading, as Wichita State basketball loses at home again to UCF

Koch Arena has lost its luster as one of the toughest venues for visiting teams to win at in college basketball.

Half of the American Athletic Conference has left the Roundhouse victorious, as UCF registered its first win at Koch Arena in its final visit before departing for the Big 12 with a 72-67 win over Wichita State on Wednesday evening.

After WSU won 74% (32-11) of its games at Koch Arena in the first five years in the AAC, its home record has slipped to 1-5 this season in conference play.

“The biggest thing (missing) was that will to win and protect home,” WSU head coach Isaac Brown said.

“When you’ve got the best fans in the country cheering for you, you’ve got to go out there and complete the game. We played well for spurs, but then we got really immature and did stuff that we can’t do.”

The Knights (14-9, 5-6 AAC) appeared vulnerable ahead of Wednesday’s matchup, entering on a 5-game losing streak directly correlated with the absence of starting center Michael Durr, who missed his seventh straight game due to a hand injury. UCF was also without another starter in Brandon Suggs on Wednesday.

WSU (12-12, 5-7 AAC) was poised to build on its recent momentum of strong play when it built an 11-point lead halfway through the second half, only to revert back to all of its worst tendencies — poor rebounding, careless turnovers, rushed 3-pointers, missed free throws — to blow the team’s third double-digit lead in a loss this season and fail to win a game where it out-shot its opponent 51% to 38%.

Despite a 36-20 advantage in points in the paint and making 65% of its 2-pointers, WSU’s offense failed to crack 1 point per possession because it turned the ball over 18 times and once again was ice-cold beyond the arc (4 of 16).

“We’ve made tremendous strides in the last few weeks, so having a letdown like this is obviously disappointing,” WSU point guard Craig Porter said. “We all work our butts off and we still fought in this game, but to give this one away, it definitely hurts. I still feel like we’re headed in the right direction, for sure.”

Porter delivered another superb game with a team-high 19 points, six rebounds and seven assists, but the momentum of the game flipped after his lay-up established a 52-41 lead.

UCF amplified its pressure and WSU wilted once it was outside of its comfort zone, committing a turnover on six of its next nine possessions. Meanwhile, UCF star freshman Taylor Hendricks — a sure-fire NBA first-round draft pick who had a half-dozen NBA scouts, including former Shocker Zarko Durisic, in attendance — took over, scoring 13 of his game-high 23 points in the final 12 minutes of the game.

Hendricks’ pick-and-pop 3-pointer gave UCF its first lead, 55-54 with 7:19 remaining, since the opening minutes of the game. When WSU briefly pulled back head, 60-59, on a fast-break dunk by Jaron Pierre (14 points, 8 rebounds) from Porter, Hendricks was again there to respond with a pair of free throws and an elbow jumper to restore UCF’s lead to 66-60 with 2:44 left.

“It’s rare to see a freshman do the things that he does, but we have confidence in him,” UCF coach Johnny Dawkins said. “That’s what happened tonight. He doesn’t have a lot of experience, but what he doesn’t have in experience he makes up for with his will and his belief in himself.”

It felt like all of the good work WSU had accomplished in the past month and the first 28 minutes of Wednesday’s game came undone with 10 straight disastrous minutes when the Shockers went from leading by 11 to trailing by seven.

During that 17-possession span, UCF’s offense torched WSU for 1.65 points per possession, a sizzling mark that illustrated how rare it was for WSU to produce a defensive stop when it absolutely needed one. Meanwhile, the Shockers’ offense sputtered down the stretch to a miserable 0.53 points per possession during that same 10-minute span.

“All losses hurt, but this one stings because I thought we had moved past all of the mistakes,” Brown said. “Turning it over late, rebounding, check-outs. We didn’t rebound like we needed to and that is all about wanting to. You’ve got to want to go check out.”

WSU was seconds away from having a possession down four with nearly two minutes left, but a bizarre break went UCF’s way when an in-bounds pass went to Hendricks, whose shoe came off on the cut with his foot appearing to touch the sideline. But no call was made and the ball was eventually funneled to C.J. Kelly to heave a desperate 28-foot attempt that swished as the shot clock expired to arm UCF with a 69-62 lead.

A late rally by the Shockers ended when Porter hit a 3-pointer to trim the deficit to 70-67 with 9.5 seconds left, but WSU failed to steal the in-bounds pass and UCF sealed the win at the foul line.

“We had multiple guys who didn’t play well tonight and we’ve got to do a better job,” Brown said. “All we can do is go back and watch this film. I’m sure it’s going to sting. I know it’s stinging me right now. We’ve got to show them the mistakes that we made and that we continue to make.”

Even with more than its fair share of careless blunders in the first half, WSU managed to take a 36-30 halftime lead. The Shockers followed the same formula that had been working for them the past month, as they out-scored UCF 20-8 in points in the paint and 12-0 in fast break points in the first half.

Porter was in his element during WSU’s 15-4 run halfway through the first half, running the fast break to perfection. He scored or assisted on 13 of WSU’s 15 points during the rally, including back-to-back alley-oop passes that ended with thunderous dunks by Walton to stake the Shockers to a 22-7 lead.

But the good times faded quickly down the stretch, as WSU failed to protect a sizable lead down the stretch yet again.

“We just went back to those bad habits that we had in the beginning of the season,” Pierre said. “We reverted back to those and that’s what got us. We’ve got more games, so we’ll move on from it. We won’t sit there and dwell on it.”