How to beat Wichita State, the complete guide:

[musiccitybulldog]

I was going to attend the game, but traveled to the Drake-ISU game and listened to the Wichita-UT game.
The thing I noticed listening was Mike Kennedy and company were quite vocal about the officiating and for my listening, that is rare?

Not seeing the game, was it overly physical?

[CBB_Fan]

I have to say CBB - you have me intrigued with all your statistics to see if the Shox really are a top 25 caliber team or not? It will be interesting to see how the Shox season plays out with that in mind.

Most teams have some things you could point as as major problems. The Shockers have the potential to be a top team, but they need to do a few things to get there. They play very effectively on defense by both reducing possessions (steals, TOs on the other team) and reducing FG% (blocks, forcing guarded midrange jumpers).

On offense, they are actually fairly solid inside the 3PT line. A lot of that came from Carl Hall, which means Early (our second producer) will have to step up, along with Lufile. The Shockers have been very inconsistent from the FT line, going 23-24 one night then shooting 50% the next. If they can shoot more consistently in the 70-80% range, they will improve their offense considerably.

The major flaws of this Shocker team are 3PT shooting and the fouling problem on defense. The solution to the first is simple: shoot less 3s. Early in the season, Marshall has given the green light to players that probably should not be shooting a ton of 3s (Armstead, Early), but the Shockers will improve as soon as Wessel, Baker, and Williams are our main shooters.

The second requires the ability to play consistent pressure defense without losing focus and committing unneeded fouls. It is very hard to do that, but Gregg Marshall is an excellent defensive coach. They can make a few adjustments immediately, including hanging back slightly more on the perimeter.

Regarding the game, Mike Kennedy was correct in that the officiating was not excellent. Jay Bilas tweeted:

The officiating in the Tenn-Wichita St. game has gone way past embarrassing. Unfortunate the "amateurs" are being let down by the "pros."

The game was more physical than normal, but some calls were just missed.

[troutangler]

1. Penetrate: Wichita State overplays on the perimeter to try and force steals, but that simply forces fouls. Example: Trae Golden (25 points, 13-16 FTM-FTA)

2. Make your open shots: Wichita State plays "hard" on defense (hard meaning overly aggressive, with lots of fouls but few made baskets), so you need to make shots when you don't have a man on you. Shoot 50% against us, and you are halfway to winning the same. Example: Iowa first half (8-8 from 3PT line)

3. Shoot free-throws well: Wichita State is not good enough to play decent defense and not foul. If you are a good team, you'll be shooting from the line 30-40 times a game, easily enough to make up for missing a few shots. Example: Tennessee (29-36 FTA-FTM)


And that's it. You literally have to do nothing else to beat us right now. We have a one man offense (Carl Hall), and our defense depends on officials not calling fouls. If our opponents have an off shooting night, or miss from the free-throw line, we look like a good team. But a truly good team will beat us because we don't do enough things well to make up for the pretty horrible failings we have right now.

Do you think this is a revelation? Your #1, 2, and 3 are true for any basketball game. Get in the lane and make open shots....wow. The other team does that one time and now the sky is falling?

[Hail Our Panthers]

How to beat UNI:

1. Force us to shoot wide open, uncontested layups all game

[CBB_Fan]

Do you think this is a revelation? Your #1, 2, and 3 are true for any basketball game. Get in the lane and make open shots....wow. The other team does that one time and now the sky is falling?

That is similar to saying that all you have to do to win basketball is make baskets and stop your opponent. The difference is in the specifics.

Wichita State plays aggressively on the perimeter, aiming to create steals in turnovers. However, they also have a tendency to reach in on every drive, which is why I said a good team should stress attacking the Shocker defense with a quick driving player.

Of course, making open shots is key to winning basketball games. But the Shockers don't give teams very many because of the way they play defense, so the importance of making those few shots rises significantly. Look at the Iowa game to see what I mean. We gave them very few open shots, and held them to something like 4-31 inside the 3PT line, but we only won by around 10 points. If Iowa expected to play with us, they needed to hit the few open shots we gave them.

Free throws are important because the Shockers give up so many of them. They account for around 26% of our opponent's points. That may not seem like much, but only 12 teams in the NCAA give up a higher percentage. That that means is that the difference between shooting 60% in a game and 80% is much larger than normal, equivalent to something like 4-5 points a game. That difference is huge if you consider the number of basketball games that come down to one or two possessions.

Anyway, the official way to beat the Shockers has now changed.

The way I suggest now is to wait and let the Shockers kill each in practice. At the rate they are going now, you only have a couple of weeks before the entire team in down, if that. These types of injuries make a few free-throws irrelevant because they can change the entire way the team plays.

[Redbird23]

It's going to be easier to beat WICH w/o Hall and Baker, but still a very good and tough team to beat

[shocktheheart]

It's going to be easier to beat WICH w/o Hall and Baker, but still a very good and tough team to beat

Add Wessell to the list as well.

[CBB_Fan]

It's going to be easier to beat WICH w/o Hall and Baker, but still a very good and tough team to beat

I think this is going to be the stretch of games where Marshall earns his giant salary. We are essentially down our entire starting line-up (counting Orukpe, because he is still hampered). What will the differences be between their playstyle now and before?

1. They will play more on the perimeter (from Marshall)
2. Probably higher scoring games on both sides of the ball
3. Cleanthony Early will average 15+ FGAs

The big questions are:

1. Can Wiggins and Lufile step up and ease the scoring load?
2. How much will Orukpe be able to play?
3. How many minutes will we see Armstead and Williams share the court?
4. Does Derail Green stop redshirting?

I think the starting line-up may be:

Armstead
Cotton
Wiggins
Early
Orukpe/Lufile (depending on whether Orukpe is healthy enough to start).

My reasoning for that line-up is that Demetric Williams is too fundamentally similar to Armstead to play with him. They don't play that well together because they occupy the same "space" (meaning role) on the court. So I see Williams as the first substitute, with Cotton starting in his place.

Wiggins is going to have to step up and play SF, because we don't have many options with Baker and Wessel out. I see Wiggins and Cotton getting the majority of minutes because they don't have other options except bringing up Green.

Same thing for Lufile. He'll get a ton of minutes, and may or may not be ready. With Orukpe still injured, he could even start. Luckily for Wichita State, Lufile (Lu-FEEL) has been efficient and seems to be able to score from the post, shooting over 80% from the field.

Anyway, this group is completely different from the group a week ago, so this thread has been rendered meaningless by injuries.