Shockers say ‘Bye’ to Braves, ‘Hello’ to semifinals
Wichita State players get last minute advice before subbing into the game.
ST. LOUIS — For Wichita State, the start of the Friday’s quarterfinal game against No. 7-seeded Bradley was too close for comfort. They hit just one shot in their first nine attempts.
“We had a little jitters at that point,” WSU head coach Gregg Marshall said.
Marshall, with a younger team than he’s used to taking into St. Louis, looked for a change.
Then, eight minutes into the first half, the change Marshall needed came forward.
Rashard Kelly put the Shockers ahead for the first time in the game with an and-one and an uncontested dunk. Kelly’s flush ignited a new momentum for the Shockers, and they never looked back.
“That’s what I do — bring energy and drive and make sure everybody is having fun,” Kelly said.
Kelly, a junior forward, isn’t always Marshall’s most standout player. He’s rarely in the starting lineup. He doesn’t come away with the most minutes, and he seldom leads any categories in the stat sheet.
“I don’t really like what minutes and scores mean,” Kelly said, “I just try to help everybody else out.”
Marshall, eyes set on winning three games in three days, pulled his third unit off the bench with 12 minutes left in Friday’s game.
The Shockers, up as much as 33 points at one time, blew out Bradley in the quarterfinals of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. The Braves season ended with a 26-point falter to the Shockers.
“You have to have a mental edge,” Marshall said. “You can’t go in with young people thinking it’s going to be easy. It’s never easy.”
In the final five minutes of the first half, the Shockers went on a 20-5 run.
Sophomore Markis McDuffie kept the tone set with a breakaway slam early in the second half.
“We have a very deep team,” Marshall said. “I feel very confident that I can go 10 or 11 deep at any given time.”
Darral Willis, Jr. led the Shockers in scoring with 17 points. He also had seven rebounds. Kelly also snagged seven rebounds and posted 14 points. Each came off the bench.
The No. 6 seeded Missouri State will play WSU at 5 p.m. Saturday in the semifinals.
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Aliyah Funschelle was a sports reporter covering men's basketball for The Sunflower. She studied sports management at Wichita State, and worked as a Campus...
Hannah Roberts was a photographer for The Sunflower. Roberts majored in entrepreneurship and minored in communications. She was born and raised in Wichita,...
