The mountain top was right in front of them.
Wichita State had eyes on the lead in the American Conference men’s basketball standings. The league’s peak was there for 28 minutes, 6 seconds Wednesday inside Koch Arena.
Then it was out of sight.
An offensive stumble of 16 misses on their last 18 attempts blurred the Shockers’ view in a 66-58 defeat against South Florida that snowballed throughout the second half and snapped a four-game home winning streak.
While neither team shot particularly well, the Bulls suffocated WSU for 40 minutes. The Shockers were given little room to operate and repeatedly had possessions halted by active USF hands. Twelve of their 13 turnovers were steals going the other way. Four players combined to shoot 0-for-12.
WSU finished the game hitting just 32% of its shots from the floor, which included a 27% clip in the second half alone.
“This is a game that honors toughness. And we were not tough from a ball security standpoint,” coach Paul Mills said. “We did not then do the things we needed to do from a physicality standpoint in order to give ourselves a chance.”
Toughness and physicality — metrics often unseen in the box score — were glaringly visible against the Bulls (17-8, 9-3 American).
They scored 10 more points in the paint, 30-20. They crashed for seven more rebounds, including a plus-12 margin in the second half. They turned 14 offensive rebounds into as many points while WSU (15-10, 7-5) scored just eight on 15 boards at that end.
“They were bumping us off our spots, making it a little tougher on sets we were running,” senior guard Mike Gray Jr. said. “That’s how they slowed us down just a little bit.”
For the Shockers, rebounding has been their bedrock. They’ve only faced four teams now who’ve been able to secure more on the glass than them.
Three of those four games have resulted in losses. Throw in a tied margin against Florida Atlantic, and that makes four.
Through 25 games, it’s a rarity when WSU loses the battle of the boards. It’s also been an Achilles’ heel for the Shockers when it happens.
“It’s rare for us to get turned around and really just dominated,” Mills said. “We’ve only been outrebounded all year four times. All four times have resulted in losses. But minus-(12) in a half is unacceptable. I look forward to showing this film to our guys tomorrow.”
Learning from the tape may be the most valuable thing for WSU. A short turnaround is required as Tulsa travels to town Saturday at 6 p.m., reeling from its loss to UAB. The Golden Hurricane, which was also atop the conference standings, fell to second place in the standings as a result.
The Shockers can climb to that spot with a win and a month remaining on the regular season calendar.
And earning the No. 1 or 2 seed is of the utmost importance this year, headed into March’s conference tournament in Birmingham, Ala. The top two teams at the end of the regular season earn a bye all the way to the semifinals.
Hopes of that are still outweighed by USF’s sting — for now. When asked if Wednesday was a missed opportunity, Mills wasn’t choosy with his words.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Especially just being told what happened through the rest of the conference.
“We’re still in the thick of things in order to try to ensure that (we’re) a top-two seed. But we got a lot of things to fix before Saturday night.”
It’s going to take a short-term memory to get over the loss, however.
“We’ve got to move on,” senior guard Kenyon Giles said. “We’ve got a really good Tulsa team (coming up), so we’ve got to throw that in the past. If you want to think about the game, we’ve got to use that as fuel to play Tulsa.”
Gray added: “You can’t let one loss turn into two.”
The only way to the top now is to not let another snowball happen. Wednesday was the reminder. Saturday is the start.
