Wichita State led for a majority of the game against the No. 24 University of Memphis, but a late-game offensive drought ruined the Shockers’ road upset bid.
On Thursday night, the Tigers scratched out a sloppy win against Wichita State, 61-53.
The Shockers dropped to 1-5 in the American Athletic Conference, while Memphis improved to 5-1.
Both teams set a season-high in turnovers, the vast majority of which were self-inflicted. WSU’s 22 turnovers are the most of the head coach Paul Mills era, while Memphis gave the ball away 20 times.
Mills sounded dejected in his radio interview after the game.
“You’re not going to win a game with 10 assists and 22 turnovers, so if you’re under a .5 assist-to-turnover ratio, that’s going to come back and get you,” Mills said.
Memphis’ sophomore guard PJ Haggerty, who ranks second in the nation in scoring, did his part against the Shockers. He put in a game-high 22 points on 11 shots, frustrating the Wichita State defense.
Mills praised the Shockers’ efforts defending the Memphis pick-and-roll.
“I thought we did a good job, especially on the early drags, and I thought we were solid in the half-court, specifically in the protection,” he said. “I thought the coverage was okay, but I give a B+ effort to our protection on the backside.”
Senior guard Harlond Beverly carried the load for Wichita State with a season-high 18 points, although he also turned the ball over a game-high six times.
The Shockers took the lead a little over six minutes into the game, 8-6. They maintained the advantage throughout the first half, going up by as many as eight points, 18-10, after an 8-0 run. Wichita State went into the break with a stunning lead, 27-23.
Memphis was unable to get anything going offensively in the first half, due in part to turning the ball over 14 times, six shy of the Tigers’ single-game high all season.
WSU kept Memphis at bay early in the second half, but midway through the period, the Tigers amped up the defensive pressure. The Shockers committed seven turnovers within a four-and-a-half minute span as Memphis took its first lead since the 15:52 mark of the first half, 42-41.
The teams traded the lead seven times over the next four minutes. The run ended with the teams tied at 49 points. The scoreline remained level for the next two minutes as neither team could find the bottom of the net — a stretch that included turnovers on three consecutive possessions as the players ran up and down the floor.
Eventually, Memphis found some semblance of an offensive rhythm — mostly off Shocker turnovers — while Wichita State could not make anything happen in the half-court. The Shockers didn’t make a single shot from the field during the last seven minutes of the game until senior center Quincy Ballard put in a garbage-time dunk with 11 seconds left.
Memphis ended the game on an 11-2 run.
Colby Rogers, who transferred to Memphis from Wichita State during the offseason, struggled against his former team, shooting 1-10 from the field.
On Wichita State’s side, senior guard Xavier Bell had a game to forget. He came into the game averaging 17.6 points per game against AAC opponents, but got into early foul trouble against Memphis and put up a goose egg in scoring — his first time not scoring a bucket in two years.
Bell also had a team-low -14 plus/minus in only 14 minutes of game time — but still received playing time late in the fourth quarter over junior forward Corey Washington, who had a team-high +4 plus/minus and scored 11 points.
Wichita State shot 3-16 (19%) from 3-point range, its fourth-worst performance on the season. Fifth-year guard Justin Hill continued a recent cold stretch from deep, missing all five of his long-range attempts. Hill has shot a combined 4-22 from beyond the arc in his last five games.
Next up, the Shockers will travel to the University of Tulsa on Sunday, Jan. 26. The Golden Hurricane are 2-4 so far in AAC play. Tipoff is scheduled for 2 p.m.
“We need to clean up for Sunday’s game,” Mills said. “All our attention goes to what can we learn from this to make sure it doesn’t put us in the same position on Sunday, and we need to find a way to win that.”
