Wichita State Game Thread
 

Thursday, February 6th, 2020
7:00 PM
Koch Arena
ESPN

Wichita State (17-4, 5-3 AAC, NET #37) is well on their way to securing their 8th NCAA Tournament bid in 9 years after taking a brief hiatus last season under 13th-year coach, Gregg Marshall. The Shockers, who only have 2 juniors and 1 senior on scholarship this season, have built one of the AAC's stronger tournament resumes so far with 7 Q2 wins and 0 Q3/Q4 losses. Their reemergence has come on the strength of a stellar team defense that is currently ranked 11th per KenPom and is holding teams to 38.4% shooting from the field on the year.

While WSU is a rather poor shooting team overall (40.4 FG%, 32.5 3FG%), they've shot particularly bad from 3 in their 4 losses this year (22/102 -21.5%). They don't feature a single player who's shooting over 36% from 3 during AAC play. However, they are a very strong offensive rebounding team, grabbing nearly 13/game, which has them ranked 40th nationally.

Despite, boasting one of the league's stronger home court advantages, WSU hasn't been super impressive at Koch during their 4 AAC games, having only beat ECU by 6, UCF by 8, and also losing to Houston by 11 (they beat Memphis by 9 as well).

UC has beaten Wichita in 4 of 5 AAC match-ups, winning both games played at Koch Arena in the series. With both teams still in search of their first Q1 victory on the year, a win tomorrow night would elevate UC into the projected field of 68 much quicker than if they lost.

They are going to be jacked up coming off a loss and considering we beat them twice at their gym. Revenge game. We will have to battle like it’s do or die.

+4

Slightly surprised considering the recent trajectory of each team (they've lost 3 of 5; we've won 4 in a row), but if we really are an NCAA tournament caliber team, this is our night to prove it in front of a national audience.

Always tough to play at the round house... Add in the fact that they hate us, I expect Gregg Marshall and his psychotic wife to be all amped up for this game. I think this game could go either way, Wichita state doesn't shoot the ball very well but I fully expect them to start the game shooting 85% hitting 7 of 8 three's because well that's usually how it goes. Wichita needs a win bad after dropping two in a row, they will be out for blood tonight, UC needs to man up, Jarron will be Jarron, they will double Vogt, Tre Scott and Keith Williams cannot disappear like they sometimes do on road games, I am excited to see Dou and Harvey get more minutes tonight, hopefully they don't get to overwhelmed in this environment... The round house gets insanely loud. This will be a tough game.

Vogt might have his hands full with Echenique so others are going to have to step up. We can't try to have Jarron do it all.


They've really struggled on offense in conference. Erik Stevenson was crushing OOC but he's struggled lately. Etienne is shooting over 40% from 3 on the season but 31.8% in conference. Burton is a 38% 3 point shooter on the season, but 26.3% in conference.


These guys are capable of shooting. They've been struggling lately, but they are a lot better than their conference numbers.



They are young and have been struggling, would be great to jump on them early and hope it gets in their head. Gotta keep the pressure on all game.

Echenique is my biggest concern. He has the size, strength and experience that he should be able to handle Vogt without WSU needing to double too much on defense.

On offense, he isn't a great three point shooter, but shoots well enough that Vogt needs to respect it. As we all know, Vogt is very bad at defense if he has to leave the paint.

Echenique's size could give Diarra problems on the interior if we try to use him instead. Echenique has 30+ pounds on Diarra.

unfortunately a game where sorolla could have helped just for his size.


Echenique can shoot 3's till his arms fall off. He's made 6 in 26 career conference games. If he's out there shooting a lot that means he's going away from his strengths. He shoots 71% around the rim.

I was just noticing when you look at our numbers we have 3 point shooters at 37%, 35%, 35%, 34% and Jarron is the lowest on that list (although mika is struggling now)


Our overall 3 point numbers are dropped by McNeal and Scott's combined 13-75.

Cumberlandx2, and keith are 99-284 34.8% on the season and 46-127 36.2% in conference.


Jarron's might drop some the rest of the way, but Jaevin's should go up. Who knows with Keith but he usually only takes good ones and has been ok this year.

also we had plane trouble again so we'll be getting to wichita really late again just like with tulane.


this crap gotta go.

getting there this afternoon apparently, so literally get off the plane and go straight to the arena.