Wichita State Basketball: Start of new era doesn't seem to faze Shockers

Wichita State basketball’s flexes it’s muscles defensively and shows off superb depth in win over LSU.

The Wichita State Shockers weren’t tested in their first four games of the season, as they played four mid-major programs. Gregg Marshall’s team not only won all four outings, but they defeated all four opponents by an average of almost 40 points a game (!).

They scored 116 points against Maryland-Eastern Shore and didn’t show any signs of poor play without former Shocker stars Ron Baker and Fred VanVleet.

They entered a whole different atmosphere on Wednesday afternoon though, as they faced off against their first Power Five opponent, LSU, in the start of the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas.

Instead of showing any flaws that were left behind following Baker and VanVleet’s departures, the Shockers passed their first test with flying colors.

Wichita State crushed LSU from start to finish, 82-47, and looked impressive on both ends of the floor in the process.

The Shockers were led by Landry Shamet (16 points on 6-of-9 shooting) and Markis McDuffie (13 points on 5-of-8 shooting), but the main strength of this Shocker team is their depth.

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Marshall has 10-to-11 players at his disposal who are capable of playing consistent minutes. McDuffie, who is clearly one of their best players, comes off the bench, while one of their unproven, but dangerous weapons, Darral Willis Jr., has averaged only 16.8 minutes per game so far this year.

They have an underrated point guard in Shamet, dangerous perimeter shooters (Conner Frankamp and Austin Reaves) and a lot of versatile options in the front court (Shaquille Morris, Rashard Kelly, Zach Brown, Willis and Rauno Nurger).

With all of those players and no true go-to option, Wichita State becomes awfully difficult to stop in the half court when they are moving the ball and running crisp set plays. LSU isn’t a very good defensive team to begin with, but the Shockers clearly made matters worse with their 16 assists on 31 field goals.

On the defensive end, the Shockers are fundamentally sound and they dig in on every possession. They are intense, they deflect passes and they create turnovers. McDuffie in particular is their best defender. He locked up the Tigers’ top talent Antonio Blakeney for the entire afternoon, limiting him to just 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting.

“Want to talk about defense?,” Marshall said following the victory. “We did hold them to 28 percent and 17 percent. Everyone wants to talk about offense. Let’s talk about defense.”

Meanwhile, for LSU, their issues from last season’s disappointment have seemed to trickle into 2016-17. They took some bad shots in this game, played very poor defense and didn’t get good play out of their point guard position.

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LSU has their fair share of issues and should be one of the worst teams in the SEC under Johnny Jones. However, if anyone thought it was Illinois State or Northern Iowa’s year in the Missouri Valley, they might need to think again.

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Wichita State Basketball: Start of new era doesn’t seem to faze Shockers

By Carmine Carcieri | Nov 23, 2016

Wichita State basketball’s flexes it’s muscles defensively and shows off superb depth in win over LSU.