🏀 MBB Preview: WSU vs. Oklahoma State

WICHITA, Kan.—Dominant defenses go head-to-head Saturday when the Wichita State Shockers taken on the Oklahoma State Cowboys downtown at INTRUST Bank Arena.

OPENING TIPS:

1. WSU (9th, .366) and OSU (7th, .364) both rank among the nation's top-10 in field goal percentage defense. The Cowboys have held all 10 opponents under 40%. WSU has kept eight of its 10 foes beneath that line.
2. With the exception of 2020-21 (due to COVID-19) , WSU has played its annual downtown game in every season since 2010-11. The Shockers are 8-3. One of the three losses came to OSU in 2016.
3. The Shockers have won three of the five meetings since 2016 when the teams renewed their rivalry after a long hiatus, but they have yet to defeat OSU in Wichita.
4. The road team has taken each of the last six in this series. OSU won in 2002 at the Kansas Coliseum, 2016 at INTRUST Bank Arena and 2020 at Charles Koch Arena. WSU has won three straight in Stillwater (2017, 2019, 2021).
5. WSU hit 13 threes apiece in back-to-back wins over Longwood and Mississippi Valley State.  Those 26 triples mark the best two-game stretch in program history.
6. Tuesday night against MVSU, the Shockers finished +20 in turnover margin (3 TO, 23 forced) to break a 38-year-old school year. It's the highest margin this season in a game involving two Division I schools.
7. 11 of the 13 Shockers who have seen action this year are newcomers (two redshirts plus nine transfers).
8. Senior point guard Craig Porter Jr. – one of just two returners from last year's active roster – leads the team in points (13.7), assists (4.4), steals (1.7) and blocks (1.9, No. 45 nationally).
9. Junior wing Jaykwon Walton (13.4 ppg, team-best 6.6 rpg) has made the biggest impact among the new additions. His .536 three-point percentage (15-of-28) is tops in the AAC among players averaging at least two attempts-per-game.
10. Jaron Pierre Jr. (9.2 ppg) has led the scoring in back-to-back games with a season-high 20 against Longwood and 15 vs. MVSU.
11. The Shockers finish out their non-conference season next Thursday against Texas Southern. A win over OSU would guarantee a winning non-con record for the 25th straight year.

ON THIS DATE: DEC. 17:
1932 – The Shockers faced Kansas State for the first time ever on the hardwood and came away with a 29-27 victory. According to the 1933 Parnassus "the Wildcat cagers, who had the week before beaten Kansas University, were at a loss to find an effective defense against the swift rushing attack of the Wheatshockers." They went on to finish 14-2 and won the Central Intercollegiate Conference title. Two members of that team – Francis Johnson and Jack Ragland – as well as head coach Gene Johnson were part of the 1936 U.S. team that won the first-ever Olympic basketball gold medal.
1951 – Hall of Fame coach Ralph Miller notched his first career road win at New Mexico by a score of 84-58.
2016 – Oklahoma State handed the Shockers their first loss in seven tries at downtown INTRUST Bank Arena.

MORE MVSU LEFTOVERS:

1. WSU's +20 turnover margin against Mississippi Valley State on Tuesday was a school record and the largest this season in a game involving two Division I schools.
2. Craig Porter Jr.'s nine assists were the most by a Shocker without a turnover since Feb. 7, 2015 when Fred VanVleet finished with 11 as part of a triple-double stat line against Missouri State. It was only the fifth 9+ assists, 0 turnover game in the last 25 seasons. VanVleet did it three times and Joe Ragland once.
3. WSU's 36 three-point attempts vs. MVSU tied for the most by a Shocker team in regulation and were three shy of the overall school record.
4. WSU's 5.00 assist-to-turnover ratio (15 A, 3 TO) tied for the fifth-best in school history and three turnovers tied for third.

TRENDING:

1. WSU has hit 26 threes in its last two games. That's the most in any two-game stretch in program history. The Shockers made 25 in wins over Memphis (11) and UConn (14) during the 2017-18 season. They did it again in 2018-19 against Tulsa (15) and Memphis (10).
2. The Shockers are 25-2 under Isaac Brown when scoring 70+ points in regulation and 25-6 when out-shooting their opponent from the field.
3. WSU is 1-3 in games decided by five points in either direction.
4. With a season-high 20 points against Longwood Jaron Pierre Jr. became the sixth different Shocker to take a turn as leading scorer and the fourth to reach the 20-point plateau.
5. Craig Porter Jr. has reached double-figure scoring in each of the last eight games, matching his career total coming into the year (2019-21).
6. Jaykwon Walton has had made at least half of his shots in each of the last seven contests. He's shooting 62.7% in that span, includiing 61.1% (11-of-18) from the deep.
7. Walton's .536 three-point percentage leads the AAC and ranks No. 21 nationally among players with at least two attempts-per-game.
8. The 6-foot-2 Porter and 7-footer Quincy Ballard are both among the top-100 in blocks-per-game.
9. Ballard (1.5) is 90th as of Friday. Nine of his 12 total blocks have come in the past three games, including five against Longwood.
10. Per RealGM, Porter's average (1.9, 45th) is tops among the nation's point guards.

200-CLUB:

1. Isaac Brown put a premium on perimeter shooting when assembling his 2022 recruiting class, which made the Shockers' miserable three-point shooting start all the more disappointing. Through the first five games, WSU ranked as one of the nation's worst in that category (5.4 on .255 accuracy). Brown liked the looks that his players were getting and believed the shots would eventually begin to fall -- but only if they were willing to work for it. In early December he instituted a new "200 Club." Players were challenged to come in early or stay after practice for an extra 200 attempts.
2. The results speak for themselves. Over the last five games, Shockers have collectively averaged 9.4 threes on 35.5% accuracy, led b Jaron Pierre Jr. (12-of-31, .387), Jaykwon Walton (9-of-15, .600), Melvion Flanagan (7-of-13, .538), Gus Okafor (6-of-15, .400) and Craig Porter Jr. (5-of-14, .357).

SECRET WEAPON UNLEASHED:

1. Melvion Flanagan's 14 points in the Dec. 10 win over Longwood are unofficially the most by a Shocker walk-on in the NCAA's 13 scholarship era.
2. The sophomore is the son of one of head coach Isaac Brown's former college teammates at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Melvin Flanagan. The younger Flanagan turned down Division I offers for a chance to play at WSU but had logged just two minutes in the eight games prior to his breakthrough.
3. With Craig Porter Jr. in early foul trouble and the Shockers offense looking stagnant, Brown inserted 5-10, 150-pound Flanagan in hopes of finding a spark. Flanagan responded by hitting 4-of-7 threes.  Three nights later against MVSU, Flanagan logged another nine points in 11 minutes on 3-of-6 three-point shooting.
4. Flanagan is averaging a team-best 25.4 points-per-40-minutes.

THE SERIES WITH OSU:

1. OSU holds a lopsided, 31-11 lead in the all-time series, which began in 1932 and included 24 Missouri Valley Conference contests between 1945 and 1957, however WSU has taken three of the five matchups since the series' 2016 revival.
2. This will be the sixth meeting between the schools in a seven-year span.
3. The road team has won six straight in the series, with Oklahoma State victories at the Kansas Coliseum (2002), INTRUST Bank Arena (2016) and Charles Koch Arena (2020). The Shockers won at Gallagher-Iba Arena in 2017, 2019 and 2021.
4. WSU's three-game winning streak in Stillwater comes on the heels of eight decades of futility. Shocker teams were 2-15 prior (2-14 at GIA).
5. The series began Dec. 12, 1934 when the teams were know as the Oklahoma A&M Aggies and the University of Wichita Shockers. The Aggies' 24-17 victory was their first under a young head coach named Henry Iba.
6. Iba, of course, stuck around for many more years. He's the coach of record for 31 of the 42 games in the series.
7. WSU is 5-6 against OSU coaches not named Iba, including 3-1 against Mike Boynton Jr..
8. The Cowboys got a sizeable headstart, winning 18 of the first 19 meetings between 1934 and 1953. Since 1965, WSU teams are a combined 6-6 against OSU.
9. OSU was a member of the Missouri Valley Conference for 31 years and won 19 of the 24 conference meetings against the Shockers between 1945 (when Wichita joined) and 1956 (when OSU made its exit).
10. The most important series meeting took place in the 1965 Midwest Regional Final at K-State's Ahearn Fieldhouse. The Shockers stuck with their starting-five for all 40 minutes in a 54-46 victory. Kelly Pete finished with 19 points and nine rebounds to go with 12 points from Vernon Smith and 11 from Dave Leach. WSU scored on its first nine possessions, then spent the next 35 minutes milking the clock to secure a Final Four bid
11. The series took a 25-year hiatus from 1965 to 1990 before Eddie Sutton and Mike Cohen brought it back. On Dec. 8, 1990, John Cooper (who would later serve as an OSU assistant under Boyton) scored 21 points to lead the Shockers to a 72-69 win at Levitt Arena, but a top-10 OSU squad earned revenge the following year.
12. The schools played another four-year series from 1999-2002 with OSU winning three of them.
13. On Dec. 6, 2000, playing in just its fifth game under new head coach Mark Turgeon, WSU stunned Sutton's Pokes, 61-59. Down 29-19 at halftime, the Shockers rallied behind Terrell Benton's 16 second-half points.
14. The following year, WSU pushed No. 14 OSU to the brink in a 61-59 loss at GIA.
15. A home-and-home series in 2016 and 2017 ended another 14-year series drought.
16. On Dec. 17, 2016, OSU handled the Shockers, 93-76 at INTRUST Bank Arena in a battle of eventual NCAA tournament teams. The loss snapped a school-record 42-game non-conference home winning streak.
17. The sixth-ranked Shockers returned the favor in December, 2017 behind Landry Shamet's career-high 30 points. It was their first win at GIA in 60 years.
18. The teams did not officially play in 2018-19 but took part in a preseason closed-door scrimmage at CKA.
19. A new four-year series began in 2019-20. WSU returned to GIA on Dec. 8, 2019 and scored an 80-61 victory over a Cowboy team ranked 25th in the Coaches Poll, behind 19 points from true freshman Tyson Etienne. The Shockers led by as many as 29 points down the stretch.
20. OSU avenged the loss the following year in its first visit to the Roundhouse since 2000. Attendance was limited to 5% of capacity (525) due to COVID-19 restrictions. WSU tied the game at 64 on a pair of Morris Udeze free throws, but OSU's Cade Cunningham hit a guarded three with 10 seconds remaining to lift the Cowboys to a 67-64 victory.
21. The Shockers twice rallied from sizeable deficits to win the December, 2021 meeting in Stillwater. Down 45-38 midway through the second half, WSU finished the game on a 22-6 run. Ricky Council IV made five straight shots during that stretch for 12 of his game-high 17 points. OSU opened both halves with 10-0 runs, but the Shockers used a 17-4 to run take a two-point lead into the half. WSU was scoreless until the 12:48-mark of the second half before exploding again.

SCOUTING OSU:

1. Oklahoma State tied for fifth in October's Big 12 peseason poll, matching its 2021-22 finish.
2. The Cowboys (15-15, 8-10 Big 12 last year) are out to a 6-4 start under sixth-year head coach Mike Boynton Jr. They're 54th (as of Thursday) in the NCAA NET Rankings and 34th in KenPom.
3. Three of the four losses have come to teams ranked 60-or-higher in the NCAA NET, including a 10-point setback at current No. 1 UConn on Dec. 1 and a 70-65 loss to No. 25 Virginia Tech last weekend. The Cowboys' best win came Dec. 6 at home against No. 23 Sam Houston State (65-51).
4. 6-3 senior guard Avery Anderson III – a third team All-Big 12 choice last spring – leads the team in points (12.8), assists (3.1) and steals (2.1). He's shooting 89% at the foul line on 4.6 attempts-per-game.
5. 6-6 junior guard Bryce Thompson is second at 10.6 points-per-game.
6. The Cowboys ranks seventh nationally in field goal percentage defense (.364) due in large part to the presence of 7-1 junior center Moussa Cisse. Last year's Big 12 co-Defensive Player of the Year enters the weekend ranked among the NCAA leaders in blocks (5th, 3.1) and rebounds (11th, 10.4).
7. OSU has been an average shooting team but is elite on the offensive glass with Cisse and Kalib Boone (10.1 ppg, 5.6 rpg) combining to average 6.3 offensive boards-per-game.
8. Boynton has used the same starting-five for all 10 games. High Point grad transfer John-Michael Wright (8.9 ppg) is the only newcomer in that group.

MATCHUP MASHUP:

1. New WSU assistant Butch Pierre spent eight seasons on Travis Ford's staff at Oklahoma State (2008-16), helping the school to five NCAA tournament appearances. His recruiting efforts helped the Cowboys reel in four top-20 classes (two of them top-10) and a pair of McDonald's All-American signees. Four Cowboys went on to play in the NBA: Marcus Smart (6th overall, 2014), James Anderson (20th, 2010), Juwan Evans (39th, 2017) and Markel Brown (44th, 2014),
2. OSU is WSU's closest Division I neighbor. Gallagher-Iba Arena is roughly 123 miles from Charles Koch Arena by car. By contrast, K-State's Bramlage Coliseum is 129 miles door-to-door and KU's Allen Fieldhouse is 169.
3. WSU has won 10 of its last 18 against Big 12 foes dating back to the 2009-10 season. That includes a 3-2 mark against OSU.
4. Moussa Cisse started his career at Memphis where he was the 2021 American Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year. In his lone meeting with the Shockers that season he stacked up 12 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks in 23 minutes.
5. Craig Porter Jr. and Kenny Pohto are the only returning Shockers who saw minutes in last year's WSU-OSU game in Stillwater.
6. There's an advanced stat for everything these days. Even luck. KenPom rates WSU (307th) and OSU (345th) among the unluckiest teams in college basketball with a metric that compares a teams expected win total (based on stats) to its actual record.
7. WSU has played some high-profile games over the years at INTRUST Bank Arena. Eight of the 11 have come against KenPom top-100 opponents.

WICHITA STATE AT INTRUST BANK ARENA:
Wichita State annually plays a non-conference men's basketball date downtown. The Shockers are 8-3 all-time against a list of foes that includes Kansas State (2021), Oklahoma (2017 & 2019), Oklahoma State (2016 & 2022), Saint Louis (2014), Southern Miss (2012 & 2018), Tennessee (2013), Tulsa (2010) and Utah (2015).

Dec. 21, 2010 -- WSU 82, Tulsa 79
WSU's first appearance in the new building came against its oldest rival. The crowd of 14,112 (at the time, the largest to watch a college hoops game in Wichita) saw David Kyles hit three treys in the first two minutes and score 14 of the Shockers' first 16 points. Garrett Stutz added 20.

Nov. 25, 2011 -- WSU 68, UAB 46
In a smothering defensive performance, WSU held defending CUSA champion UAB to 46 points on 32% shooting (including 1-of-16 from three).

Dec. 22, 2012 -- WSU 59, Southern Miss 51
In another defensive masterpiece against a Southern Miss squad that would go on to post 27 wins, WSU overcame a 12-point second half deficit by limiting the Eagles to four points over the final eight minutes.

Dec. 14, 2013 -- #12 WSU 70, Tennessee 61
WSU clinched the best start in school history by beating eventual Sweet-16 qualifier Tennessee, 70-61, to improve to 10-0. Tekele Cotton led the way with 19 points.

Dec. 6, 2014 -- #8 WSU 81, Saint Louis 52
The Shockers posted the most lopsided win in INTRUST Bank Arena history in December of 2014, crushing defending Atlantic-10 champion, Saint Louis by 29 points.

Dec. 12, 2015 -- WSU 67, #25 Utah 50
WSU committed just three turnovers while forcing 19 in a 17-point rout of nationally-ranked Utah. Markis McDuffie connected on four of his five three-pointers.

Dec. 17, 2016 -- Oklahoma State 93, WSU 76
Darral Willis Jr. scored 24 points and grabbed 13 rebounds (nine of them on the offensive glass), but the double-double wasn't enough to overcome a red-hot OSU, which knocked down 14 threes.

Dec. 16, 2017 -- Oklahoma 91, #3 Wichita State 83
Freshman standout Trae Young scored 29 points and dished out an arena-record 10 assists to lead a Sooner team that came in ranked 24th in the Coaches Poll. A consensus first team All-American, Young was selected No. 5 overall in the 2018 NBA Draft. WSU's Darral Willis Jr. became the first player with multiple 20-point games at the arena, finishing with his second double-double in as many trips (20 pts, 12 reb).

Dec. 15, 2018 -- Wichita State 63, Southern Miss 60
Jaime Echenique's alley-oop from Ricky Torres provided the go-ahead basket with 40.7 seconds left and the Shockers -- who had led by as many as 17 points near the 14:00-mark -- survived USM's comeback bid.

Dec. 14, 2019 -- Wichita State 80, Oklahoma 75
Down eight points with 11:25 to play, WSU launched a 12-0 run. Tyson Etienne's three-pointer with 2:30 remaining put the Shockers in front to stay. WSU went 15-of-16 at the foul line in the second half and finished the game +17 on the boards. Trey Wade scored 11 points and grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds.

Dec. 5, 2021 -- Kansas State 65, Wichita State 59
Markquis Nowell scored 16 points for K-State, including a deep three that broke a 54-all tie with 1:35 to play. Morris Udeze tallied 19 for WSU, which led by as many as 12 points in the first half.

A SHOCKER WIN WOULD….  
... Make them 7-4 with three straight wins.
... Up their all-time INTRUST Bank Arena mark to 9-3.
... Make them 4-2 against OSU since the series' 2016 revival and narrow the gap to 31-12 all-time.
... Be their first win over the Cowboys in Wichita since 2000 at old Levitt Arena, snapping a three-game skid.

UP NEXT: TEXAS SOUTHERN
Thursday, Dec. 22 | 7 p.m. CT | ESPN+
Wichita, Kan. | Charles Koch Arena

1. TSU is on a short list of schools that have won a game in each of the last two NCAA tournaments.
2. The Tigers have appeared in every postseason since 2014 -- a stretch that includes six NCAA tournament bids, one NIT and one CIT. They've won SWAC titles in six of the past nine years.
3. Former LSU head coach Johnny Jones is in his fifth season at TSU.
4. The TSU roster includes 6-7 redshirt freshman Shaqir O'Neal, son of NBA legend Shaquille.
5. WSU leads the all-time series 4-0. The last came in November, 2019 when the Shockers grinded out a 69-63 win.
6. TSU is 2-7 against the nation's toughest schedule (per both NCAA NET and KenPom). The Tigers upset Arizona State on Nov. 13 and have also faced San Francisco, Texas Tech, Houston, Auburn and Kansas.
7. TSU meets North Carolina A&T and Hampton this weekend in Las Vegas as part of the Chris Paul HBCU Challenge before making the trip to Wichita.

AND THEN: UCF 
Wednesday, Dec. 28 | 6 p.m. CT | ESPN+
Orlando, Fla. | Addition Financial Arena

1. The Shockers open their sixth season of American Athletic Conference play.
2. The Knights defeated the Shockers for the first time ever last February in Orlando (71-66).
3. WSU leads the series 8-1 (3-1 in Orlando).
4. UCF (8-2) is coming off a 72-61 road win at Ole Miss and will face Missouri (Saturday at FLA Live Arena in Sunrise, Fla.) and Stetson (Dec. 21) prior to the holiday break.