Wichita State at South Florida Game Thread

[eeshocker]

I haven't had a chance to do my breakdown of the inequities of the unbalanced league schedule yet. But it's worth noting that they just finished 5 games in 12 days, 3 on the road, the 2 at home against the preseason favorites, with travel between every game. The 3 road games were to the 3 most distant league opponents.

I know the league is tough. But that's a hell of a stretch.

Probably good to take a step back and think about how new and difficult that is for a young team. My guess is that we magically start looking a lot better over the next couple of weeks.

For some perspective; Houston will play their 5th game in 16 days on Thursday , with one of those against a presumptive contender. Memphis will play their 4th game in 13 days tomorrow.

I'm not saying the schedule is unfair; as I said I haven't had the chance to do all the comparisons. I am saying WSU just finished a relatively brutal stretch. Everything is still on the table.

I would also throw out there that they didn't really have to travel at all the in the preseason. I wonder if the new guys are just a little jet lagged. They got used to being in their own beds at night and then all of the sudden they are on the road for two weeks, back and forth. Could easily be some major fatigue going on.

[Dan]

It would be nice if we could play more JE at the 4 and put someone else in the post. Unfortunately we don’t have a better post option. I thought Udeze would be the next Carl Hall but his play seems to be getting worse as the year goes on.

[asiseeit]

Offense was only a little better hitting on 3-4 cylinders instead of two with the 3 pt shooting of just a couple making the
difference. We only had TEN assists which indicates we are not playing well together. We were a little scrappier winning
the boards and had ten steals. The defense was pretty good most of the time. USF was probably the only conference
team we could have beaten last night. Got a win but we are still struggling. We sure don't look anything like a 16-3
team right now that is going to challenge for one of the top three conference spots or the tournament championship.
Don't see how AM still gets criticized when he doesn't even get to play. Same thing as the early part of last season.
Once he got to play last year he played very well against good competition and was an important part of our late
season success. Don't think we are ever going to find out if he gets much of a chance to do it again, at least this season.

[kcshocker11]

I thought the first half, oh boy here we go again..... a tough grind out game.. Any road win is a good win! Go Shocks!

[Cdizzle]

I love how you always defend the weak play of our players by finding one single incident.

Seems better to use one specific real example in support of our players than sweeping generalizations attacking our players. Could just be me though.

To make my own sweeping generalization, I think most people on this board would have called Shaquille O'Neal Fifi until the last 8 games of his collegiate career.

[Shockm]

I like that dizzle puts some perspective on the season and that is important this year. Most likely we are a year or two away from being our best team. Looking back, I didn't expect the team to necessarily be 16-3 at this time of year. We are a very young team and most of our players are inexperienced and are probably role players. We only have one Senior who hasn't played organized basketball for many years. Our biggest problem is that from game to game, we don't have very much consistency this year.

JE has talent but he has only played basketball for a couple of years prior to junior college (so this is probably his 6th year of organized bb and no AAU experience). I had hoped that he would be an improved player (from last year) this year but at this time, I haven't seen it. Hopefully his consistency improves, but he isn't usually going to carry the team on his back as I had hoped he might.
DD I had hoped he could carry the team but he hasn't shown himself capable of that. He is becoming a more consistent player now. His strengths are defense on the opponents best player, and hitting some shots. His play the past couple of weeks has been encouraging and he could be a very good player if he builds his consistency too, but still not a player who will carry the team on his back.
JB has improved from last year. He has probably been our most consistent player but he still is not capable of carrying our team on his back. Even though he is more consistent than last year, he still has had his up and down moments. The most encouraging aspect of JB's play this year is that he has improved his shooting. He has had a couple of games where he carried our team on his back, but he has too been inconsistent and I don't have confidence that he will regularly carry our team on his back. He is still a Sophomore and capable of improving still more.
ES had a good stretch of games where he seemed to be our best player and perhaps of carrying them. He may get back his mojo but he has come on hard times during the past few games, and I no longer have confidence that he can regularly carry our young team.
TE and GS are very good Freshmen who I think next year will be able to carry us offensively. They are decent all around players but have shown holes in their games that need improvement. However, while talented, they are too young to be our best players and carry us on their back although they have occasionally shown signs of doing that.
TW is a very good junior college talent with multiple skills. He is a very good rebounder for his size, and a very good athlete but I don't see him ever being able to carry our team

Our team is quite young and our strength seems to be our depth. However, while we can be very good, our weakness seems to be our consistency. I think that we are capable of winning the league but I'm not sure we are there yet. I'm more confident that we can go to the NCAA Tournament this year.

[Cdizzle]

Do we need a player to offensively carry us on their back, consistently? Who were the last 3 Shockers to do that? My answer would be:

1. Markis McDuffie (didn't make the tourney)
2. Landry Shamet (flamed out in the tourney)
3. Cle Early ('carried' while playing with an NBA backcourt)

IMO Marshall's best teams are when we got 6-7 guys averaging 8-13 points and the other team can't score. Which is exactly where we're at right now. Just have to keep grinding and getting better.

[Shockm]

Do we need a player to offensively carry us on their back, consistently? Who were the last 3 Shockers to do that? My answer would be:

1. Markis McDuffie (didn't make the tourney)
2. Landry Shamet (flamed out in the tourney)
3. Cle Early ('carried' while playing with an NBA backcourt)

IMO Marshall's best teams are when we got 6-7 guys averaging 8-13 points and the other team can't score. Which is exactly where we're at right now. Just have to keep grinding and getting better.

One of my main points is that we lack consistency and hopefully we get it. My secondary point is that we are probably a year away from being as good as we would like but this shouldn't be a throw away year either.

[Arizona Shocker]

I picked a toss up until I could see if energy and defense was going to travel. Glad to see it can and did and that DD and ETN were on target most of the time when we needed them.

Now if we can get ES back on track with swagger but not too much that he is cocky, should be a fun Feb.

I love this team...

[forevershockerfan]

Here's the deal. Never fear, Tyson, JE were there and DD is back. TE is our laser shooter and good things happen when JE gets over 20 minutes. Slowly, but steadily DD is getting back in the groove. This USF team thumped us there last year, but is in a losing skid right now. USF played Memphis at home and lost. I saw part of that game and they looked better in their Memphis home loss than against us. There is a lot of talk about the parity in College Basketball this Season and the AAC is no exception IMO. Wichita State has over 10,000 fans plus at home games and USF only had 3,304 last night.

Any road win in the AAC is key and the Shocks are digging out of their funk of the last 2 losses. Our Shocks outrebounded USF by 8 and we was able to play some improved inside/out ball last night. Wade led us with 7 rb's. We got our turnover issues down to a mild roar with 11 turnovers. There are still concerns with our offense with only 10 assists. Sherfield led the team with 5 assists, but had 3 turnovers. Since we can't call 3G about free-throws, let me offer these observations. The Shocks shot 76.9% and were 10-13. That's partially good, but has a twist to it. USF was 17-24 and made 7 more throws. Moving forward I'm hoping our beloved Shocks can keep improving on drawing more fouls on offense and play defense and without excessive fouling. The inside/out Shocker game still has plenty of room for improvement and must happen to have the success we all desire.

Last night was a much needed win and the Shocks get back to some home cooking and another win for Saturday.

[pinstripers]

We looked better last night, but that happens when you make some shots

[Woodrow]

Offense was only a little better hitting on 3-4 cylinders instead of two with the 3 pt shooting of just a couple making the
difference. We only had TEN assists which indicates we are not playing well together. We were a little scrappier winning
the boards and had ten steals. The defense was pretty good most of the time. USF was probably the only conference
team we could have beaten last night. Got a win but we are still struggling. We sure don't look anything like a 16-3
team right now that is going to challenge for one of the top three conference spots or the tournament championship.
Don't see how AM still gets criticized when he doesn't even get to play. Same thing as the early part of last season.
Once he got to play last year he played very well against good competition and was an important part of our late
season success. Don't think we are ever going to find out if he gets much of a chance to do it again, at least this season.

Our assist total would go up if we hit a higher percentage of wide open shots.

[Topshock]

Do we need a player to offensively carry us on their back, consistently? Who were the last 3 Shockers to do that? My answer would be:

1. Markis McDuffie (didn't make the tourney)
2. Landry Shamet (flamed out in the tourney)
3. Cle Early ('carried' while playing with an NBA backcourt)

IMO Marshall's best teams are when we got 6-7 guys averaging 8-13 points and the other team can't score. Which is exactly where we're at right now. Just have to keep grinding and getting better.

Not necessarily disputing your main point but to say Cle Early was "carried" is just wrong.

[Cdizzle]

Not necessarily disputing your main point but to say Cle Early was "carried" is just wrong.

I think you misunderstood my inclusion of Early. I listed him as one that did consistently carry WSU offensively. I put the air quotes around it because he had a lot of help making that happen from an NBA backcourt.

[Topshock]

I think you misunderstood my inclusion of Early. I listed him as one that did consistently carry WSU offensively. I put the air quotes around it because he had a lot of help making that happen from an NBA backcourt.

Agreed, just as they had a lot of help from him for a undefeated season.