WICHITA, Kan. _ The crowd at Koch Arena was on its feet, roaring as loud as it could to spur the Shockers to their 24th straight victory on Devlin Court.
But the opponent wasn't another Big 12 team or a top mid-major led by an NBA prospect like South Dakota State.
No, this was Arkansas State. Yes, the Arkansas State that was 4-7 and picked to finish seventh in the Sun Belt and 29.5-point underdogs for Tuesday's game against No. 11 Wichita State. By Ken Pomeroy's metrics, the Red Wolves are the 259th-best team in the country _ out of 351 Division I teams.
Yet, Arkansas State spent more time leading than trailing for the first 30 minutes of the game and the Shockers had to rally to avoid the biggest regular-season upset in college basketball in the past decade. It took 27 points from Samajae Haynes-Jones off the bench for WSU to survive with an 89-80 victory.
It was the third straight game in Wichita where WSU trailed at halftime and its defense allowed at least 50 points. The Shockers trailed 50-42 to South Dakota State on Dec. 5, 54-39 to Oklahoma on Saturday and 50-44 to Arkansas State on Tuesday.
Arkansas State shot 62 percent from the field in the first half and made 10 of 16 3-pointers. It finished shooting 49 percent with 11 3-pointers. ASU entered shooting 33.3 percent from beyond the arc, the 234th-best mark in the country.
It's not the first time a WSU opponent has bombed away against the Shockers. WSU's defense is allowing opponents to attempt 45 percent of their shots as 3-pointers, the 17th-highest rate in the country. On Tuesday, 47 percent of ASU's shots were 3-pointers and it became the fifth team to make at least 10 3-pointers against WSU this season.
ASU's Deven Simms scored a game-high 30 points and became the seventh player to score 25 or more points against WSU's defense this season.
The winning surge didn't occur until Haynes-Jones canned a corner 3 with 10:49 left to put WSU up 65-63. That kicked off a 15-2 run with the highlight coming when Rashard Kelly drove down the lane and dunked on a defender to ignite the crowd.
That gave WSU a 77-65 lead, but the game was far from over.
ASU would make one final rally, boosted by a technical foul on Gregg Marshall that allowed Deven Simms to make four straight free throws and cut WSU's lead to 83-78. A jumper by Simms narrowed WSU's lead to 84-80 with 2:33 remaining, but a corner 3 by Haynes-Jones proved to be the dagger.
Landry Shamet followed with an acrobatic bank shot to extend the lead to nine on the next possession. Shamet finished with 18 points and six assists, while Darral Willis had 14 points and seven rebounds.
Markis McDuffie was in uniform. The injured junior, who is nearing a return from a stress fracture, suited up for the first time this season and went through warm-ups for the first time. He could make his season debut against Florida Gulf Coast on Friday.
Conner Frankamp missed his first game as a Shocker due to a migraine headache.
