Middling start a bit of a shock
Wichita State’s prospects for March take hit
It’s a credit to Gregg Marshall and the Wichita State men’s basketball program that we’ve gotten so used to penciling the Shockers in to the NCAA tournament.
We no longer consider them a prototypical midmajor; their resources are excellent, they schedule tough and can beat just about anybody in the country on any given day.
But this season appears to be a bit different. This is not exactly what we’re used to seeing out of Wichita State.
For starters, the Shockers are 5-5, with losses on the road or at neutral sites to Tulsa, Southern California, Alabama, Iowa and Seton Hall. Some of those came while Wichita State played without Fred VanVleet, which is worth mentioning because the NCAA tournament selection committee will mention that.
The Shockers’ best win, by a considerable margin, came against Utah.
They’re not shooting the ball all that well (they rank in the bottom half of Division I in effective field goal percentage and threepoint shooting, per KenPom .com), and it’s strange watching this team struggle considering the talent and experience of VanVleet and Ron Baker.
In short, this is not the kind of non-conference performance we’re used to seeing with this program. The Shockers were No. 12 in the USA TODAY Sports preseason coaches poll. We’re used to Wichita State cruising through this time of year relatively unscathed, with a large enough cushion for an NCAA tournament at-large bid that it could float on it.
Instead, it’s time to wonder if the Shockers could even sneak into the big dance without winning the Missouri Valley Conference tournament. That is a legitimate question.
If the margin for error is not completely gone by now, it’s at least uncomfortably slim for this team. Certainly come March, atlarge bids and the bubble are affected by the landscape; other teams’ wins and losses can have far-reaching impact.
So without predicting what tournament contenders will look like then, it’s hard to be definitive about Wichita State’s chances right now.
But they don’t look good. And that feels very unfamiliar.