Are Shockers ready for AAC games? What Wichita State coach says before final tune-up

Has the Wichita State men’s basketball team progressed enough through its nonconference slate to be prepared for American Athletic Conference play?

Entering the final nonconference tune-up game against Texas Southern, scheduled for a 7 p.m. tip on Thursday with streaming available on ESPN+, the Shockers are saddled with a mediocre 6-5 record and have lost all three marquee matchups — against Missouri, Kansas State and Oklahoma State.

The first 11 games of this season have produced familiar sights to WSU fans: The offense is once again struggling with poor outside shooting and the defense is borderline elite.

“Defensively, we’re right there,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said when asked to gauge if enough progress has been made. “We’re one of the better defensive teams in the country. Everybody is in the right spots. We’re buying in. We’ve just got to continue to get better on offense and that starts with trying to get some easy baskets, like off a steal and get out in transition. You’ve got to get to the free-throw line more. You’ve got to take good shots. And you’ve got to be able to make some contested shots. Our offense has got to continue to grow.”

An optimist would point to WSU’s stingy defense, which ranks 11th in the country in effective field goal percentage allowed (42.4%) and No. 41 in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom.com.

Even with WSU’s defense holding K-State (0.87 points per possession) and Oklahoma State (0.97 points per possession) well under their typical offensive outputs, the Shockers lost by a combined 15 points because their own offense could only muster an average of 49.5 points and they shot a miserable 12.2% (5 of 41) beyond the arc.

“You’ve got to live in the gym and you’ve got to be able to make wide-open shots,” Brown said. “And me as a head coach, I’ve got to try to get these guys better looks.”

Producing easy chances rarely ever happens for WSU in its half-court offense. When the Shockers run through their sets, they cut, pass and screen — but seldom with conviction.

Brown has noticed the lack of attention to detail on film.

“You’ve got to have harder cuts,” Brown said. “The more you cut, the more it makes the defense help out. You’ve got to set good screens to get guys open, whether that’s a back screen, a down screen, a stagger screen, and then guys have got to run their man into the screen and come off ready to shoot and have confidence that they can make the shot.”

The court often looks shrunken when WSU has the basketball because it lacks the outside shooting to command respect, which allows the help defense to sag into the paint and sometimes even entirely leave a shooter on the perimeter to help stop dribble penetration.

WSU currently plays four players — James Rojas (15.8%), Xavier Bell (13.3%), Shammah Scott (15.4%) and Kenny Pohto (11.1%) — who are ice-cold from beyond the arc to start the season.

“We’re getting wide-open threes, but we’re not making them,” Brown said. “I told the guys, ‘You’ve got to start turning them down and shot fake and drive the basketball to get someone else a wide-open shot.’”

WSU has proven it doesn’t need to shoot well to win games in the American. During the COVID-shortened 2020-21 championship season, WSU similarly lost to Missouri and Oklahoma State in the non-conference before winning 11 of 13 conference games with a poor-shooting offense and elite defense. That title helped earn Brown the full-time position.

But consistently winning that way leaves almost no margin for error, as the Shockers fully know after their crunch-time performance dipped and they followed with a disappointing 15-13 campaign last season.

The good news for WSU is that it has a good chance of restoring some positive momentum on offense in Thursday’s game against a 3-8 Texas Southern team that ranks No. 288 nationally in effective field goal percentage allowed.

But the Shockers are well aware of the potential of SWAC teams after Alcorn State stunned them on their home court back in November. Texas Southern has an upset of its own after handing Arizona State its only loss of the season on Nov. 13.

“The SWAC has done a tremendous job at getting wins this season and this is the team that runs the SWAC,” Brown said of Texas Southern, which has won the SWAC tournament title the last two seasons. “They have a history of winning championships in the SWAC and they’ve been to two NCAA tournaments. They’ve got a bunch of guys that were transfers and have played at a high level. They’ve got good athletes. They’re tough. And they really compete.”

Texas Southern at Wichita State basketball game preview

Records: TSU 3-8, WSU 6-5

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Where: Koch Arena, Wichita (10,506)

Streaming: ESPN+

Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM

KenPom says: WSU 69, TSU 56

Series: WSU leads 4-0 (4-0 in Wichita)

Projected starting lineups

Texas Southern Tigers

Coach: Johnny Jones, fifth season, 79-61

Wichita State Shockers

Coach: Isaac Brown, third season, 37-24