WSU is halfway through the MVC schedule after Saturday’s 63-54 loss to Bradley at Koch Arena. WSU is tied for last in the MVC with Evansville and there seems to be no hope for a dramatic turnaround. The injuries, inexperience and other personnel issues make it difficult to evaluate this team and its future.
With a full roster, WSU was a competitive MVC team and had a chance to finish seventh or, with a lot of breaks and effort, sixth. With Matt Braeuer out, Ramon Clemente missing one game and now Mantas Griskenas out, WSU is in deep trouble. That doesn’t take into account the many bumps and bruises all players deal with. WSU, which is undersized and undermanned, gets more than most. All the Shockers can do is continue to play hard. The players who will return next season need to continue to improve. The coaches need to find out who can help next season, what holes recruiting needs to cover and what players need to work on.
Fortunately for coach Gregg Marshall’s sanity, the Shockers continue to hustle.
“That would probably put me over the edge, if they stopped playing hard,” he said after Saturday’s game. “That would be very difficult to watch. I was very pleased with the way we competed, through everything, until the bitter end.”
- Marshall, correctly, said the officials did not cost his team the game. He was clearly not pleased with some of the calls in the final 5:34 after WSU cut the margin to eight points and had momentum. Bradley’s long possession that featured four fouls on WSU and milked more than a minute was of particular interest. “I agreed with the first three (calls),” Marshall said. “I did not agree with the fourth one. He explained to me there was some body on the foul. I said ‘Tell me a play where you go to the basket in this league where there’s not body.’ I guess they chose that time to start enforcing some body fouls on the drive. But that didn’t determine the game.”
- Saturday’s games (as well as today’s Indiana State-Illinois State game) organized the Valley race a bit. WSU blew a chance to pull Bradley down and now the Shockers and Evansville are 1-8, three games behind their closest rivals in the standings. Bradley is firmly in a pack of five teams that are 5-4 or 4-5. Creighton missed a chance to separate itself from that pack with its loss at Southern Illinois. Should Illinois State win today, as expected, the Redbirds go to 7-2 and Indiana State falls to 5-4.
- WSU has trailed at halftime in its past seven games, four times by 12 or more points.
- Examples of what Marshall is dealing with: Graham Hatch could give WSU outside shooting. He has three turnovers in 11 minutes against Bradley. Marshall can’t play him. J.T. Durley scores 18 in 16 minutes against Northern Iowa. He follows that with two in 11 minutes against Bradley.
- Marshall and the players made a point to mention the crowd. I would agree the fan turnout was outstanding. Almost every seat full for a team on five-game losing streak is a powerful statement about WSU fans and basketball (or maybe everybody saw Rambo on Friday). It will be interesting to see how it shapes up the rest of the season. WSU has four home games remaining.
- Anybody else scared to start looking at Bracket Buster possibilities? WSU’s RPI, according to CollegeRPI.com, is ranked No. 177. Home BB teams in that area include: Fresno State (175), Fullerton (148), James Madison (191), North Carolina-Wilmington (168), William & Mary (172) and Murray State (174).