In front of a sold-out Koch Arena, Fred VanVleet led the Shockers to a 67-53 victory over the University of Northern Iowa Panthers.

Sophomore point guard VanVleet led the team with a career high 22 points and added six rebounds in Sunday’s win.

VanVleet also had this excellent game without turning over the ball once. In the last four games, he dished 22 assists and only tallied one turnover.

With the Panthers shooting 75 percent from beyond the three-point line when the game began, it didn’t seem likely that the Shockers would triumph with their 13 point victory.

UNI also started out with a 12-2 run, and it looked like they were well on their way to breaking the Shockers’ 14-0 record.

Then, VanVleet started playing hard. VanVleet took over with 12 points and was 4 of 5 in the first half alone.

The Shockers were up by a score of 30-22 at halftime.

“The thing we got back was our defensive intensity,” VanVleet said. “To win and to go deep and win you need to be able to rely on defense.”

In the second half, Cleanthony Early decided it was his time to shine and show why he is an NBA prospect in the upcoming draft.

Early dropped 18 points in the game and scored 11 of the team’s first 13 to start off the second half of play.

VanVleet sealed the deal by adding two 3-point plays the old fashioned way in the last five minutes.

The Shockers then hit free throws to bring the final tally to 67-53 for their 15^th victory of the season.

Wichita State is next in action against the Illinois State Redbirds at 7 p.m. on Jan. 8 at Koch Arena.