Late-game turnovers continue to plague Shockers in Wichita State basketball losses

Turnovers continue to fuel late-game collapses by the Wichita State men’s basketball team.

The latest disaster occurred on Wednesday when the Shockers failed to protect an 8-point lead in the final three minutes of regulation, as four straight turnovers aided an 11-0 run for Tulane, which rallied to force overtime and won 95-90.

This was on the heels of an even bigger implosion this past Sunday when WSU melted down against SMU’s full-court pressure, committing five turnovers in a seven-possession span to blow a 13-point lead in just over two minutes.

WSU salvaged a victory in the SMU game, but this past week of play from the Shockers (10-10, 3-5 AAC) has put a spotlight on a glaring weakness halfway through American Athletic Conference play, which continues with Sunday’s road trip to East Carolina (11-10, 2-6 AAC).

“It’s just our inability to protect these leads,” WSU head coach Isaac Brown said when asked what concerned him the most following Wednesday’s loss.

“We had some careless turnovers, not being strong with the ball. If you’re not strong with the ball, teams are going to make you pay. That’s something we have to get back to practice and continue to work on.”

While ball security is certainly high on the list of needed improvements, WSU’s turnovers down the stretch of close games have come in a variety of ways.

Against Tulane, WSU twice paid the price for trying to drain time with the lead, as it failed to put up a shot in time to avoid a shot-clock violation and then, on the very next possession, was caught in the same predicament, only this time James Rojas stepped on the baseline during a desperate attempt to beat the shot clock.

“Once we stopped trying to be aggressive and slowed the ball down, we started taking last-second shots in the shot clock and it took us out of our rhythm,” WSU point guard Craig Porter said. “I felt like that also led to us being lackadaisical on the defensive end. It was like one thing led to another.”

The final turnover in regulation against Tulane was like a nightmare flashback to just three days prior when WSU crumbled against SMU’s full-court press.

Upon reviewing the film of WSU’s struggles, Brown made the decision to have Rojas throw the ball in against Tulane’s press and serve as the safety valve for WSU’s press-break alongside the guards.

Rojas executed his role for most of the game, even bringing the ball up to break the full-court pressure a handful of times for WSU. While Rojas’ ball-handling is sufficient for a 6-foot-6 big man, asking him to constantly dribble under pressure was always going to be a tall task for someone who has the highest turnover rate (25.1%) on the team.

With the game tied at 71 and the clock ticking under 40 seconds, Rojas inbounded the ball to Jaron Pierre Jr. and hung back to help relieve pressure. When Rojas received a pass, he dribbled with his left hand past midcourt with Tulane’s Kevin Cross tumbling backward. For a split-second, everyone paused — even Rojas dribbling — in anticipation of the officials making either a block or charge call. But no whistle came and Tulane’s Sion James took advantage, as he came from behind Rojas to poke the ball away.

Pierre was able to retrieve the ball in the backcourt, but when he attempted to bring the ball back across halfcourt, he had the ball poked away from behind as well. James recovered the steal, dunked while being fouled and converted a three-point play to put Tulane ahead 74-71 with 22.6 seconds.

“We could have won, but we don’t dwell on games like this,” Pierre said. “Once it’s over, it’s over. We’re onto our next game.”

While WSU can choose not to dwell over the could-have-been win, it should choose to learn from its mistakes.

It’s not the amount of turnovers WSU is committing — WSU actually ranks in the top-100 nationally (No. 93) in limiting them — it’s when the Shockers are committing turnovers.

WSU held a 10-point lead over Missouri with five minutes left in regulation, but turned the ball over four times in a seven-possession span and ultimately fell 88-84 in overtime. Just a few days later, WSU had a chance to knock off Kansas State, now ranked No. 5 in the country, but turned the ball over on its final four possessions and didn’t even attempt a shot in the final two minutes of a 55-50 loss.

Multiple turnovers also fizzled out comeback attempts when the Shockers were within striking distance in the final eight minutes of the second half in games against UCF, East Carolina and Memphis.

“It’s been a roller coaster, but everybody is sticking together,” WSU junior Jaykwon Walton said. “We’ve got a long season ahead of us. We’re staying positive and we’ll come up with more wins, for sure.”

While turnovers may have cost the Shockers in the final minutes of regulation, their shot selection was why they squandered their 18-point lead from late in the first half.

When WSU opened up a 41-23 lead with 3:30 remaining in the first half, the Shockers were playing inside-out through center Kenny Pohto (13 first-half points) and making it a point to almost always get a paint touch against Tulane’s matchup zone, which resulted in 9-of-14 shooting in the paint.

“We were moving the ball, taking good shots and being aggressive against the zone,” Porter said. “We listened to what coach said and he prepared us well. I felt like if we got the ball inside against their zone and penetrated, we found the open man and made shots.”

At halftime, Tulane coach Ron Hunter trusted what the season-long numbers told him about WSU’s hot shooting start (7-of-15) beyond the arc. The Shockers entered as one of the worst shooting teams in the country, making just 29% of their threes at one of the 30-worst rates nationally.

“I kept telling our guys that the percentages have got to come back,” Hunter said. “They were hot and the crowd was really getting them energized. I told our guys at halftime, ‘If you can cut it under 10, then the crowd will start to get restless and they’ll start missing some of those shots.’”

Not only did WSU’s percentages in the second half fall more in line with WSU’s ice-cold numbers from the season, but the Shockers, seemingly encouraged by their hot start beyond the arc, became infatuated with launching three-pointers in the second half.

Instead of remaining patient, waiting to work the ball inside to Pohto and trying to attack the paint — the game plan that was working in the first half — WSU developed a quick trigger and started taking threes the first time a player was just semi-open.

Even with the hot shooting, WSU’s three-point rate when it built its 18-point lead was only 41%. In the final three minutes of the first half and 20 minutes of the second half, 23 of WSU’s 38 shots (an astronomical 61% three-point rate) came beyond the arc.

“Of course we wanted to go inside more, but Tulane is playing that zone for a reason,” Brown said. “They pack it in and it’s hard to get it inside sometimes. They force you to take a lot of threes, but we’ve got to be smart enough to shot fake, turn it down and drive it and still try to get it to the paint. When we play inside-out, we play good.”

Following timeouts, WSU was better about looking inside. But as play continued, it was as if Brown’s words in the huddle seeped out of the player’s minds.

It was a small victory for Tulane every time WSU chose to shoot another three without feeding Pohto the ball inside. By the end, the Shockers had attempted a season-high 38 triples, just one off the most in school history.

“Our whole deal is we want you to shoot a lot of threes,” said Hunter, whose team ranks in the bottom-50 nationally in defensive three-point rate. “They ended up shooting 38 threes. I don’t know if they’ve shot that many all year. For a team that’s not a great three-point shooting team, that’s what we wanted even though they were making them early.”