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Nov 29, 2022

🏀 MBB Preview: Mizzou at WSU

Posted Nov 29, 2022 2:10 AM
WSU vs Mizzouri at Wichita State
WSU vs Mizzouri at Wichita State

WICHITA, Kan.—Wichita State University Men's Basketball will host Missouri on Tuesday night in Wichita.

 MISSOURI (7-0) at WICHITA STATE (4-2)
Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022 | 7 p.m. CT
Wichita, Kan. | Charles Koch Arena

TV: ESPN+
Radio: KEYN 103.7 FM (goshockers.com/Listen)
Series: MU leads 4-1 (1-0 in Wichita); Last: Nov. 26, 2021 in Wichita (WSU, 61-55)

TICKETS:
Fans can purchase tickets online at goshockers.com/Tickets, by phone at 316-978-FANS (3267), or in person at the Shocker Ticket Office, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on game days beginning 90 minutes before tipoff.

CANS FOR A CAUSE:
Fans are encouraged to bring non-perishable food items to benefit the Shocker Support Locker.

WHERE TO WATCH:
The game will air on ESPN+ with Shane Dennis (PxP) and Bob Hull (Analyst) on the call.
ESPN+ subscribers can stream live and on demand via the ESPN App.  Subscriptions for the ESPN+ app are $9.99 monthly or $99.99 annually and can be packaged with Hulu and Disney+ streaming services. Visit plus.espn.com for more information.

SHOCKER RADIO:
Listen live on KEYN 103.7 FM and online at GoShockers.com/Listen. Division I college basketball's longest-tenured duo, Mike Kennedy (pbp) and Dave Dahl (analyst) are in their 42nd season together on radio. Kennedy is in his 43rd season as Voice of the Shockers. Pregame coverage begins one hour before tipoff.

OPENING TIPS:

  1. Wichita State challenges the unbeaten Missouri Tigers (7-0) Tuesday night at Charles Koch Arena.
  2. The Shockers are coming off an 83-71 victory over Tarleton State on Saturday, keyed by Gus Okafor's 27 points and eight rebounds. WSU's 54% shooting performance was its best under Isaac Brown.
  3. Senior point guard Craig Porter Jr. leads the team in points (13.8), rebounds (7.2), assists (3.8), steals (1.8) and blocks (2.17, 25th nationally).
  4. Porter and big man Kenny Pohto (6.3 ppg, 5.3 rpg) are the only holdovers from last year's active roster. 11 of the 13 Shockers who have seen action are newcomers.
  5. Junior wing Jaykwon Walton (Georgia/Shelton State) averages 13.2 points and 5.5 rebounds and already has a pair of 20-point games under his belt.
  6. Okafor, a 6-6 graduate transfer from Southeastern Louisiana, averages 8.3 and 5.0.
  7. Offensively, the new-look Shockers are a work in progress, but they've gelled quickly on defense, holding foes to 59.2 points on 35.7% shooting (13th nationally).
  8. The Tigers are playing an up-tempo style under new head coach Dennis Gates and rank among the national leaders in points (4th, 93.3 ppg), field goal percentage (4th, .526) assists (1st, 23.3) and A:TO ratio (1st, 1.94). Defensively, Mizzou leads the nation in steals (13.9) and turnover margin (+10.0) and ranks third in takeways (22.0).
  9. Per KenPom, No. 37 Mizzou is the highest-rated opponent the Shockers have faced. They defeated No. 81 Richmond on the road on Nov. 17. Likewise, WSU (85) is the toughest Mizzou opponent. The Tigers defeated Penn (156) and Southern Indiana (193) and own five other wins against teams ranked 200-or-higher.
  10. This is the third in a four-game series that continues next year in Columbia. Visiting teams have taken each of the first two matchups. Mizzou won inside an empty CKA in 2021, but the Shockers evened the score with a  61-55 victory last November at Mizzou Arena.
  11. Since the 2005-06 season, WSU is 14-7 against SEC opponents with victories in four of its last five.
  12. Tuesday night's game is WSU's 300th in the 20 seasons since CKA's renovation. Shockers teams are 250-49 in that span (.836). This will be just the 10th matchup against a team from the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, or ACC. WSU is 5-4 in those games.
  13. 20 teams began the week with undefeated records. The Shockers will face two of them this week in Mizzou and 6-0 K-State (Saturday, 8 p.m., ESPNU).


ON THIS DATE: NOV. 29

  1. 2006 -- 17th-ranked WSU outscored UMKC 58-31 in the second half to turn a three-point halftime lead into an 85-55 win at sold out Charles Koch Arena. P.J. Couisnard (16 points) and Sean Ogirii (15) led way for the Shockers, who carried that momentum into a win at No. 15 Syracuse three days later.
  2. 2015 – Ron Baker made six three-pointers to lead the ninth-ranked Shockers to a 75-55 rout of Tulsa at the Roundhouse.


LAST TIME ON SHOCKER BASKETBALL:
Nov. 26 | Wichita | WSU 83, Tarleton State 71

  1. Gus Okafor busted loose for 27 points to help WSU put an end to a dubious shooting streak.
  2. Okafor, a graduate transfer from Southeastern Louisiana, averaged less than five points in his first five games as a Shocker but made 9-of-11 shots against Tarleton and grabbed eight rebounds.
  3. The Shockers likewise found the cure for their offensive ailments, sinking 24-of-50 (.540) field goal attempts to break the 50% barrier for the first time in 48 games.
  4. Kenny Pohto added 13 points and nine rebounds to go with Craig Porter's 11 points and five blocks.
  5. Jakorie Smith put up 19 points for Tarleton, which was coming off a win over Boston College.
  6. WSU cashed in 24-of-29 free throws to Tarleton's 15-of-18. The Shockers lost the turnover battle 12-5 but outrebounded the Texans 40-29 and held them to 36.8%.
  7. WSU created separation midway through the first half with a 7-0 run, fueled entirely by Okafor. Over a span of 43 seconds he tallied a three-pointer, a transition layup and a stick-back to give the Shockers a 27-19 lead.
  8. Okafor scored the last of his 14 first-half points on a tip-dunk ahead of the buzzer. WSU led 44-32 at the half and by as many as 17 down the stretch


TRENDING:

  1. Craig Porter Jr. is the only player in the nation with both a 5-block and 5-steal game this season.
  2. Porter finished last week with 11 blocks in three games. He had four in Monday's win over Grand Canyon and two more on Tuesday against San Francisco.
  3. The 6-foot-2 Porter begins the week as the American Athletic Conference leader in total blocks (13) and blocks-per-game (2.17). Nationally, there are 24 players averaging more, but they're all 6-foot-7 or taller.
  4. Saturday against Tarleton, Gus Okafor became the fifth different Shocker to take a turn as leading scorer (Porter, Jaykwon Walton, Xavier Bell, Kenny Pohto).
  5. Okafor is the third Shocker to top 20 points this year, joining Walton (twice) and Porter.
  6. Okafor's 27 points fell five points shy of his overall career-high (32) set last season in a Southeastern Louisiana uniform against A&M-Corpus Christi.
  7. The Shockers' 1.339 points-per-possession against Tarleton State was their best mark since Dec. 22, 2021 when they averaged 1.378 in a 102-66 win over Prairie View A&M. They scored on over 61 percent of their possessions.
  8. WSU's 54% shooting day snapped a string of 47-straight games in which the team had failed to make more than half of its field goal attempts. The last came in a Jan. 2, 2021 win at Ole Miss when the Shockers made 52% from the field.
  9. In parts of three seasons under Brown, WSU is 23-4 when outshooting its foe from the field and 22-5 when finishing with a higher three-point percentage.
  10. The Shockers are also 23-1 when scoring at least 70 in regulation and a perfect 9-0 when they make it to 80.


DOING IT WITH DEFENSE:

  1. WSU has frustrated foes into some lengthy scoring funks. Over the first six games, opponents have had nine different scoring droughts of at least four minutes.
  2. That includes scoreless stretches of 6:08 and 9:10 by GCU and 7:29 against San Francisco.
  3. Tarleton was the first WSU opponent to avoid a spell of more than 4:00.


THE SERIES WITH MIZZOU:

  1. Mizzou leads 4-1 all-time, helped by three home wins in the early 1950s.
  2. After a nearly 70-year hiatus, the schools revived the series in 2020. This is the third in a four-game agreement that continues next year in Columbia.
  3. The visiting team has taken each of the first two matchups. Mizzou won in an empty Charles Koch Arena in December, 2020. WSU retured the favor last November with a 61-55 win at Mizzou Arena.
  4. The 2020 trip to Wichita wasn't the Tigers first appearance at the Roundhouse. That came in the first round of the 1978 NCAA tournament, when Norm Stewart's Tigers fell in double-overtime to Utah.


SCOUTING THE TIGERS:

  1. Mizzou is in its first season under Dennis Gates, who completed a successful three-year turn around at Cleveland State by leading the Vikings to back-to-back Horizon League titles and bids the 2021 NCAA tournament the 2022 NIT.
  2. Gate inherited a Mizzou squad with just one returning starter, coming off a 12-21 season (5-13 SEC), and has them out to a 7-0 start.
  3. Tuesday night marks the first action for the Tigers outside of Mizzou arena and tips off a stretch that will see them play 16 of their next 17 games against KenPom top-100 opponents.
  4. With their up-tempo attack, the Tigers rank among the national leaders in scoring offense (4th, 93.3 ppg), field goal percentage (4th, .526) assists (1st, 23.3) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1st, 1.94). Defensively, Mizzou leads the nation in steals (13.9) and turnover margin (+10.0) and ranks third in takeways (22.0).
  5. Two of Gates' Cleveland State players followed him to Mizzou and have been difference-makers: Tre Gomillion has a nation-best 7.00 assist-to-turnover ratio and D'Moi Hodge leads the nation in total steals (24).
  6. Hodge is also the team's top scorer at 16.6 points and has averaged 3.0 triples-per-game on 41.2% accuracy.
  7. Kobe Brown – Mizzou's leading scorer in 2021-22 – averages 14.0 points and team-best 5.7 rebounds.


MATCHUP MASHUP:

  1. Dennis Gates has never faced the Shockers as a head coach but was an assistant on the Nevada team that defeated WSU in the first round of the 2010 NIT. The Shockers had a 17-0 home record coming into that game.
  2. Isaac Brown grew up playing against Mizzou legend Melvin Booker in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The two attended rival high schools (Brown at Pascagoula and Booker at Moss Point).
  3. Missouri is one of seven foe on WSU's 2022-23 schedule with new head coaches. Later this week, WSU will face Jerome Tang, who has lit a similar spark at K-State. Others are Chris Gerlufsen (San Francisco), George Ivory (Mississippi Valley State), Michael Wartz (ECU), Rob Lanier (SMU) and Eric Konkol (Tulsa).
  4. WSU is 5-4 at the Roundhouse against opponents from the SEC, Big 12, Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC. Two of the losses came during the 2020-21 season with drastically reduced capacities. 

WSU vs. "Power 5" Schools at Charles Koch Arena (2003-04 to Present):
Mar. 19, 2004 – Florida State (ACC) – L, 65-76 (2ot)
Dec. 19, 2007 – LSU (SEC) – W, 67-47
Mar. 23, 2009 – Stanford (Pac-10) – L, 56-70
Dec. 19, 2009 -- #16 Texas Tech (Big 12) – W, 85-83
Mar. 16, 2011 – Nebraska (Big 12) – W, 76-49
Dec. 1, 2018 – Baylor (Big 12) – W, 71-63
Jan. 4, 2020 – Ole Miss (SEC) – W, 74-54
Dec. 6, 2020 – Missouri (SEC) – L, 62-72
Dec. 12, 2020 – Oklahoma State (Big 12) – L, 64-67


A SHOCKER WIN WOULD….
... Make them 5-2 with wins in four of their last five.
... Give them 251 wins in the 300 games since Charles Koch Arena's 2003 renovation (251-49, .837).
... Give them back-to-back wins over Mizzou and narrow the Tigers' all-time series lead to 4-2.
... Make them 15-7 against SEC foes going back to their second-round win over Tennessee in the 2006 NCAA tournament.

UP NEXT:  @ K-STATE
Saturday, Dec. 3 | 8 p.m. CT | ESPNU
Manhattan, Kan. | Bramlage Coliseum

  1. WSU makes its first visit to Manhattan since Dec. 10, 2003.
  2. This is the second in a four-year series that continues next season at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City and in 2024-25 in Wichita.
  3. Last December's matchup at INTRUST Bank Arena ended an 18-year series hiatus. K-State came from behind to win, 65-59.


AND THEN: LONGWOOD
Saturday, Dec. 10 | 3 p.m. CT | ESPN+
Wichita, Kan. | Charles Koch Arena

  1. The Lancers (26-7 last year) have four starters back from a team that steamrolled to the Big South' regular season and tournament titles and reached the NCAA tournament for the first time in 18 seasons at the Division I level.
  2. WSU senior transfer Gus Okafor began his career at Longwood before stops at Miami Dade College and Southeastern Louisiana.
  3. Seats are available online at goshockers.com/Tickets, by phone at 316-978-FANS, or in-person at the Shocker Ticket Office, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. inside Charles Koch Arena.
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