Alex Harden couldn’t miss.

It didn’t matter whether she sliced and diced to the hoop for easy layups or knocked down mid-range shots.

Thursday night was simply her night.

Harden made 10 of her 11 shots for a career high of 23 points and grabbed nine rebounds in a crucial 68-49 victory for Wichita State over Evansville (8-16, 6-7 MVC).

The win guarantees that Wichita State (18-8, 12-2 Missouri Valley Conference) stays one game ahead of Creighton in the conference standings with just four games left in the regular season.

However, the game itself was a little bit out of the ordinary. On an evening when Wichita schools and most businesses were canceled due to the weather, only 150 brazen Shocker fans were in attendance.

The Shocker women enjoy an average attendance of more than 1,000 fans per game.

“It was a little different atmosphere, but it wasn’t bad. We knew that we had to create our energy and you can tell by the start that we didn’t,” Harden said. “So we had to change it and we all brought the fire inside ourselves and worked together.”

Evansville took advantage early, making seven of its first 10 shots to take an 18-7 lead. After Evansville forward Samantha Heck made an uncontested layup to take a 20-11 lead, WSU coach Jody Adams had seen enough.

Sensing that the game might get away from her ball club, Adams called a timeout and challenged her talented sophomore to put her stamp on the game.

“Alex needed to be more aggressive—she was overthinking things at times,” Adams said.

The pep-talk got through, and Harden scored 10 of the Shockers 25 points before the half.

“We had a small conversation and we decided to change,” Adams said, smirking in Harden’s direction. “She needed to be more aggressive and she wasn’t being aggressive.”

 “I saw that we were down and I knew I could help,” Harden added. “I knew I had to bring my energy and my tempo.”

The Shockers showed their depth—all but one player received double-digit minutes. Michaela Dapprich and Darice Fountaine each scored 8 points to spearhead a second-unit assault as WSU’s bench out-scored Evansville’s 31-1.

WSU plays Southern Illinois at home on Saturday for senior night.