HOUSTON — Turnovers and missed free throws spoiled a surprise upset bid by the Wichita State men’s basketball team on the road against No. 1-ranked Houston on Thursday night.
Not much was expected from the Shockers, deemed 17.5-point underdogs by oddsmakers, and that was before their leading scorer Jaykwon Walton was ruled out with a sickness for a road game against the nation’s top-ranked team on the Cougars’ senior night.
In a game closer than the final margin indicated, Wichita State made Houston earn its 83-66 win in front of a record crowd of 7,879 fans at the Fertitta Center.
The Shockers torched one of the country’s best defenses with 65% shooting from the field and 50% accuracy on 3-pointers, but 20 turnovers and a 12-for-21 performance on free throws negated the hot shooting. WSU’s 73% effective field goal percentage was the highest Houston’s defense has allowed in the last two decades.
“The final score ain’t necessarily how the game was the whole time,” WSU senior star Craig Porter said. “There are a lot of positives to take away and you can see our offense is building every game and getting better. Our defense slipped not having Kwon there hurt us, but we were still right there. We’re not going to look at this as a negative; we’re focused on the positives.”
WSU led for more than 11 minutes and by as many as eight points in the first half, but failed to match the intensity of the Cougars, as Houston racked up 11 offensive rebounds for 15 second-chance points and forced WSU into turnover after turnover to pull away in the second half.
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson won his sixth American Athletic Conference championship, as the Cougars (28-2, 16-1 AAC) won their 10th straight game and cuts down the nets to celebrate an outright title. Meanwhile, WSU’s 5-game road winning streak was ended and the Shockers dropped to 15-14 overall and 8-9 in conference play.
WSU’s chances of a first-round bye in next week’s conference tournament were extinguished minutes after its loss, as Temple held off UCF to win and clinch a top-5 seed. The Shockers can clinch the No. 6 seed in Fort Worth with a win over South Florida in the regular-season finale at Koch Arena on Sunday.
“We felt good about certain parts of how we played collectively, but 20 turnovers is tough to deal with,” said WSU guard Jaron Pierre, who scored 16 points and had six of those turnovers. “Those turnovers are what kind of cost us.”
Houston’s Jamal Shead tied his career-high of 25 points and Marcus Sasser, the all-time winningest player in program history, added 24 more, as the Cougars outscored WSU 17-4 in points off turnovers and 15-5 in second-chance points.
“You can’t look at our box score stats and judge us,” Sampson said. “We get so many points off loose balls and turnovers and second-chance points. We’re not a very pretty first-shot team. Never have been.”
WSU senior point guard Craig Porter battled foul trouble throughout to finish with 17 points, seven rebounds and three assists, while Jaron Pierre scored 16, Kenny Pohto added 12 points and James Rojas chipped in eight points and six rebounds.
Walton, who leads WSU in scoring at 14.0 points per game, did not travel with the team and was held out due to an illness. It was WSU’s first time playing against a No. 1 team in the regular season since an encounter against Lew Alcindor-led UCLA on Dec. 8, 1967.
After a valiant first-half effort, WSU’s upset bid appeared to be finished when the Cougars came out on fire from distance and Porter was whistled for his fourth foul on a reach-in with 16:15 remaining.
The Shockers couldn’t keep Houston off the glass, which result in many kick-out opportunities for open 3-pointers. Sasser’s triple put Houston up 53-41 with 13:02 left.
But WSU proved resilient, scoring eight straight points, highlighted by a Pierre 3-pointer, to trim the deficit to 53-49 with more than 11 minutes left to play.
Turnovers prevented WSU from closing the gap any further, as the Shockers committed three turnovers in less than a minute to allow Houston to boost its lead back to 60-51. WSU never recovered.
WSU didn’t back down early, as Porter and Pierre each scored three times, including back-to-back rim-rattling dunks, to hush the sell-out crowd and give the Shockers a 12-9 lead after eight minutes.
When Houston pushed back, WSU answered. After the Cougars took the lead, 14-12, WSU scored 10 straight points, as Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler’s free throw line jumper put the Shockers up 22-14 and forced Houston coach Kelvin Sampson to call a timeout with 8:53 left.
The Shockers scorched the nets with 72% shooting in the first half, yet only managed to produce a rather pedestrian 1.07 points per possession because they turned the ball over 10 times against Houston’s pressure.
So even though Houston only shot 38% from the floor, it made all 13 of its free throws and outscored WSU in points off turnovers, 7-4, and second-chance points, 4-0, to take a 33-31 lead to halftime.
