WICHITA, Kan. _ The first game in American Athletic Conference play was a reminder to a young Wichita State team with aspirations of winning a championship that there are no easy contests in conference play, even if you're 20-point favorites like the Shockers were Wednesday against East Carolina.
The upset-minded Pirates wouldn't allow for the expected blowout, making No. 24 Wichita State earn every bit of its 75-69 victory at Koch Arena. The Shockers won their sixth straight game and improved to 1-0 in the American and 12-1 overall, while ECU dropped to 6-8 and 0-1 in conference play.
East Carolina certainly earned WSU's respect, shooting 48.3% from the field and winning the rebounding battle, 36-33, against a usually strong Shockers team.
WSU will look at its 13 missed free throws and 55.2% accuracy from the foul line as missed opportunities. Erik Stevenson led WSU with 17 points, nine rebounds and a career-high five steals. Jamarius Burton added 15 points, while Tyson Etienne and Trey Wade both scored 11 points each.
For a game where WSU led for 39 minutes, the back-and-forth battle with ECU was more tense than that statistic would suggest. The Pirates were led by an other-worldly effort by sophomore Jaylen Gardner, who finished with a game-high 29 points and 10 rebounds to keep ECU in the game almost single-handedly.
A Gardner put-back with 1:54 remaining trimmed WSU's lead to 70-67 and, after a WSU miss, gave the Pirates a possession in the final two minutes to potentially tie the game. But they committed a turnover when Tremont Robinson-White threw a pass directly to Udeze.
Stevenson followed by drawing a foul and making a free throw to extend the lead to 71-67 with 41 seconds left. Udeze came up with a huge block on the next possession and WSU made 4 of 6 free throws in the final 30 seconds to close out the victory.
Even with WSU holding an eight-point lead midway through the second half, ECU rallied with nine straight points to briefly take a 45-44 lead with 12:46 remaining. The Pirates were able to bog down WSU's offense and the Shockers complied with mostly stagnant play during the span.
WSU responded with six straight points, as Stevenson drilled a deep three from the wing and then picked off a pass and was fouled on the fast break to add another free throw for a 50-45 lead.
It wasn't until Etienne caught fire from deep that WSU was able to gain its first double-digit lead of the game. Etienne drilled a pair of clutch three-pointers when the lead was down to one possession. His first gave WSU a 53-47 lead; the second made it 58-53. When he connected on a third, WSU followed with two free throws from Burton and extended the lead to 63-53 with 7:12 remaining.
But East Carolina had one last push in it and trimmed an 11-point deficit to 65-60 with 4:29 remaining. WSU looked to be in trouble when the offense bogged down once again and Grant Sherfield missed badly on a deep three-pointer, but Echenique was there underneath to secure the offensive rebound and muscle up a score with a foul. The three-point play put WSU up 68-60 with 3:58 to play.
The first half featured mixed results for WSU's defense. The Shockers finished with eight steals and forced East Carolina into 12 turnovers but also allowed the Pirates to make 48.1% of their shots from the field.
The new year couldn't have started any better for WSU. Wade made the first shot of the game, a three-pointer, then Burton followed with a three of his own. Stevenson picked off a pass for a layup, then Burton added a free throw for a 9-0 start in the first three minutes.
But ECU proved resilient and essentially played WSU even the rest of the first half to stay within seven, 37-30, at halftime. The Pirates never wrestled away the lead from the Shockers, but they did trim the deficit to 19-17 midway through the first half. WSU pushed its lead back out to nine points again, but never opened up a double-digit lead.
Burton led the Shockers in the first half with 12 points, although he did miss four of six free throws, while Udeze gave WSU a strong spurt with nine points off the bench.
One of the biggest cheers of the game came at halftime, when sophomore Dexter Dennis, who was on a prolonged leave of absence, came back on the court with the Shockers after arriving in Wichita on a flight.
WSU returns to Koch Arena Saturday to conclude its non-conference slate with an AAC-SEC Alliance game against Mississippi (9-3) with a 3 p.m. tip-off broadcast on ESPNU.
