In the end, the same bad habits led to the end of the Wichita State's season.
When the Shockers needed it the most, they were unable to protect a lead and unable to come up with a defensive rebound.
And now WSU will be haunted by the what-ifs after letting a double-digit lead slip away in a 53-52 loss to the Drake Bulldogs in a First Four game in the NCAA Tournament at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Ind., on Thursday.
The Shockers led by as many as 12 points in the second half, but will now have to watch the rest of March Madness from home with a 16-6 record and an American Athletic Conference championship. Drake advanced to the Round of 64 where it will play the USC Trojans at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in a 3:30 p.m. Saturday game.
In its first matchup against a Missouri Valley Conference team since leaving its long-time home in 2017, WSU was locked into a rock fight it was accustomed to from those days. The loss snapped an 11-game winning streak for the Shockers over their oldest foe.
Despite a career-high 22 points from junior center Morris Udeze, the Shockers could never find a rhythm with their offense. WSU finished the game shooting a tick under 34% from the field, 16% on 3-pointers and 50% from the foul line.
Udeze gave WSU a 47-46 lead with 2:49 remaining, but Drake scored on back-to-back trips to open up a 51-47 lead in the final minute. The Shockers closed to within 53-52 with 8.1 seconds left after Dexter Dennis stole a pass and dribbled into a 3-pointer.
For the second straight game, Alterique Gilbert had a pull-up 3-pointer in the air that would have won the game and for the second straight time, it missed the mark. Gilbert finished with 10 points, while Dennis had 13 points for the Shockers. Drake was led by 21 points from Joseph Yesufu.
It was a bizarre game in the fact that WSU’s leading scorer and the co-Player of the Year in the American Athletic Conference, Tyson Etienne, finished the game without a field goal for the first time in his career. Yet, the Shockers still managed to hold a double-digit lead at multiple points throughout the game.
WSU once again had problems holding on its lead, as it allowed Drake to rattle off a 15-4 run to grab a 46-45 lead heading into the final four minutes to set up WSU’s third straight one-point game.
Behind the steady low-post play from Udeze and mid-range jumpers from Gilbert, a duo which combined for 15 points in the first half, WSU led by as many 12 points in the first half. But the opportunity to bury the Bulldogs even deeper was certainly available.
Drake went through a nearly 10-minute stretch in the first half without a made field goal and only one point. But WSU endured its own shooting woes in the first half and was only able to crack open an 18-6 lead, which could have been nearly doubled with just an average shooting performance.
That allowed Drake to stick around until it eventually made its run, which only continued the troubling recent trend of WSU closing out halves poorly. After 15 minutes of hibernation, the Bulldogs reeled off a 10-0 run to whittle WSU’s halftime advantage to 21-20. On WSU’s final eight possessions, it had six missed shots, two missed free throws and a pair of turnovers.
