WICHITA, Kan. -- After playing 3 of 4 on the road, Wichita State (16-4, 6-1 MVC) returns to Charles Koch Arena for back-to-back home games, beginning with Saturday's 2 p.m. CT tip against Indiana State (7-11, 1-5).
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Catch the action on The Valley on ESPN3, available in all 50 states, with Brad Wells and analyst Kevin Lehman.
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Listen to every Shocker game, home and away, on FM 103.7 KEYN and online at goshockers.com/listen. Mike Kennedy -- now in his 37th year as Voice of the Shockers -- will call his 1,197
th consecutive game, alongside Dave Dahl. Pregame begins at 1 p.m.
KEYN and online at goshockers.com/listen. Mike Kennedy -- now in his 37th year as Voice of the Shockers -- will call his 1,196th consecutive game, alongside Bob Hull. Pregame begins at 7 p.m.
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BOUNCING BACK:
WSU is coming off of a five-day road trip. Threat of winter weather canceled their return after Saturday night's loss at Illinois State. Instead, the team moved on to Evansville where it struggled early (trailing by 13 at the 4:00-mark of the first half) but recovered to outscore the hosts 63-33 the rest of the way in an 82-65 win.
Shaquille Morris recorded his first double-double with 17 points and a career-high 10 rebounds,
Conner Frankamp went 4-of-4 from deep, and WSU commited just six turnovers (none after halftime).
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SHAM-WOW!:
WSU has won seven of eight games, dating back to Dec. 22. Redshirt freshman
Landry Shamet has scored in double-figures in all eight while averaging a team-high 14.3 points. Over that span he's shooting 47% from three (22/47) and has a 4.38 A-to-TO ratio.
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GOING STREAKING:
The Shockers have won their their last nine meetings with Indiana State and 18 of the last 20 overall. A victory Saturday would give them double-digit winning streaks against five of their nine MVC rivals
(Others: Bradley, 14; Missouri St., 12; Drake, 10; Loyola, 10)
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SWEEPING UP:
A Shocker win would also give them a regular season sweep of the Sycamores for the fourth consecutive year and give WSU its 45
th MVC sweep in the last eight years. From 2009-10 to 2015-16, WSU swept two-game sets from 44 of 63 Valley opponents, with only Missouri State (2011) and Evansville (2013) returning the favor.
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GOOD TO BE HOME:
WSU is 10-0 this year at Charles Koch Arena with 13 straight wins dating back to last year. WSU has dropped just four conference home games in the last six Valley seasons (44-4, .917). One of those four came against Indiana State on Jan. 29, 2013. The Sycamores' 13-point win (68-55) was the most lopsided Valley home loss of the Marshall Era and snapped what had been a 20-game home winning streak for the Shockers.
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SERIES WITH THE SYCAMORES:
WSU and Indiana State meet for the 89th time since 1978. The Shockers have won just over two-thirds of the matchups all-time (59-29), including 18 of the last 20.
Gregg Marshall is 19-4 against the Sycamores since arriving in Wichita in the spring of 2007 and is 14-2 against Greg Lansing in their seven years of battle.Â
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Last Meeting: Dec. 28, 2016 | Terre Haute | WSU 80, INS 72
Darral Willis Jr. and
Markis McDuffie combined for 47 points to help Wichita State win its MVC opener... Up 71-69 with less than 3 minutes to play, Willis converted a layup and McDuffie drlled a three to give the Shockers some breathing room... Willis finished with a double-double, pairing 10 rebounds with 25 points -- most by a Shocker newcomer in his MVC debut in more than 40 years... McDuffie scored 16 of his 22 points after halftime, finishing 9-of-11 from the field with seven boards...
Landry Shamet scored 12 of his 14 points in the first half... WSU center
Shaquille Morris missed the game due to injury... Marshall relied heavily on his starters.
Zach Brown and Willis each played 32 minutes, while Shamet matched his career-high with 34 minutes of court time... Brown ripped down eight rebounds while playing effective defense on ISU standout
Brenton Scott, who scored 14 points but hit just 3-of-14 for the night...
Matt Van Scyoc (11 points) and
Jordan Barnes (10) joined Scott in double-figures for the Sycamores... The Shockers converted on 48 percent of their field goal attempts, but were just 4-of-18 from long range... WSU dominated the glass, outrebounding the Sycamores, 47-30... ISU knocked down 10 three-pointers on the night, but shot only 39% overall.
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MATCHUP MASHUP:
*WSU won six of its first seven Valley games, while Indiana State has lost 6 of 7 – a slide that began with WSU's 80-72 win in Terre Haute on Dec. 28.Â
*Half of the Sycamore's six conference losses have come by six points or less, with two of those decisions coming in overtime.
*T.J. Bell (6.1 points, 3.5 rebounds in 10 games) returned to the Indiana State program this week after briefly stepping away in mid-December. The 6-8, 250-pound senior was not on the roster when the Shockers and Sycamores clashed in Terre Haute. Bell is the last holdover from ISU's 2013 win in Wichita. He redshirted that year as a true freshman.
*Both teams protect the basketball. Against Division I competition, KenPom estimates that WSU turns the ball over on just 16.4 percent of its possessions (31st in Division I) with INS not far behind at 16.7 (50th). Those numbers are even better in conference play, with the Shockers and Sycamores sitting No. 1 and 2 in the MVC in lowest percentage of turnovers and opponent steals.
*Brenton Scott has seven 20-point games this year (second only to Evansville's Jaylon Brown in the MVC). That's two more than the Shockers have combined.
Markis McDuffie (2), Darral Willis (2) and
Landry Shamet (1) have done it five times.
*WSU leads the Valley in rebound margin (+8.2), while Indiana State ranks at the bottom (-6.6). The Shockers have won the rebounding battle in each of the last five meetings, including the Dec. 28 game when they finished with a +17 margin against the Sycamores.
*The Shockers snag offensive rebounds on well over a third of their missed shots (their .347 offensive rebound percentage leads the league), while the Sycamores are last in defensive rebound percentage (.684). Three weeks ago in Terre Haute that was a key storyline, with WSU turning 16 offensive rebounds in 19 second-chance points.
*In Valley play, by volume, ISU is the league's leading three-point shooter (26.1 attempts) and makes (10.3).Â
*Indiana State's three-point success has helped atone for some its struggles in the paint. Against Valley opponents, the Sycamores are shooting better from outside the arc (.391) than they are from inside (.381).
*WSU (.418) is one of four MVC teams shooting better than 40 percent from deep in league play, joined by Illinois State (.422), Loyola (.420) and Bradley (.400). The Valley hasn't had four teams finish better than 40% since 1987-88 when WSU (.468) led a group of five teams with that distinction.
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MARGIN CALL :
Wichita State is one of just two Division I teams that rank in the top-25 nationally in both rebounding margin and turnover margin (Louisiana is the other). The Shockers enter the week at
+8.2 on the boards (12th) and are
+3.5 in turnovers (22nd).
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WINNING WALK-ONS:
*WSU's senior duo of
Zach Bush and J
ohn Robert Simon are the NCAA's winningest walk-ons. When appearing in the box score, Bush (53-1, .981) and Simon (71-5, .934) have the highest career winning percentages in Division I (among players with at least 50 games played)
*Bush -- a walk on guard from Wichita -- was a red shirt on the Shockers' 2013 Final Four team and began logging mop-up minutes alongside Simon during WSU's undefeated run in 2013-14. Prior to a late game stint in the Shockers' loss to Oklahoma State on Dec. 17, Bush had been perfect 50-0. His .981 percentage is the highest since Chance McGrady, a Memphis walk-on from 2005-09, finished his career at perfect 51-0.
*Simon has logged the most time of the two (282 career minutes in 76 games, compared to 123 minutes and 54 games for Bush), but at the cost of four more losses. With four years of point guard experience in
Gregg Marshall's offense, the Oklahoma City native has played a key behind-the-scenes role. When a scholarship opened up early in the school year, Marshall elected to give it to Simon.
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80's THROWBACKS:
*Wichita State has reached the 80-point mark in
14 of its first
20 games.Â
*That's tied for the most 80-point games ever recorded by a
Gregg Marshall team in his 19 seasons as a head coach, passing up WSU's 2011-12 squad (14 times). The 2013-14 Shockers and 1999-00 Winthrop Eagles did it a dozen times each.
*Seven Shockers teams have scored 80 on 15-or-more occasions in a season, but the last occurence came more than 30 years ago (1984-85) when senior Xavier McDaniel led the nation in scoring and rebounding.
*With 11 regular season games remaining, the 2016-17 team is on pace to challenge the program's all-time mark, set in the 1978-79 in Gene Smithson's first year, when senior Cheese Johnson helped WSU eclipse 80 in 22 of its 28 contests.
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THREE NOTES ABOUT THREE-POINTERS:
*WSU averages close to 9 three-pointers per game (8.85) and is on pace to break the 1997-98 Shockers' school record (7.35).
*The team's 39.1 percent three-point percentage would be the program's best mark since1988-89 team finished up at .421.
*WSU has been even better in Valley play, averaging 9.4 threes per game on 41.8 percent.
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MILESTONE WATCH:
*Junior center
Shaquille Morris needs just three more blocks to catch Carl Hall for 12th on WSU's career blocks list. He enters the weekend with 77 and is on pace to crack the top-10 by the end of the regular season.
*Sophomore
Markis McDuffie needs six more points to reach 500 for his career. He'd be just the second active Valley underclassmen to reach that milestone, joining Evansville sophomore Ryan Taylor (551).
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A SHOCKER WIN WOULD... Â
….. improve their conference record to 7-1.
….. up their overall record to 17-4 and guarantee them a winning record for the eighth consecutive year.
….. improve their record at Charles Koch Arena to 11-0.
.... give them 10 consecutive wins over Indiana State.
….. extend their lead in the all-time series with the Sycamores to 60-29 (34-8 in Wichita).
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A SHOCKER LOSS WOULD...Â
….. drop them to 16-5 for the year.
….. give them two Valley losses in the first half of the conference season for the first time since the 2010-11 season when they also opened 6-2.
….. end a nine-game winning streak against the Sycamores.
….. be less good than a win.
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UP AHEAD: Jan. 24 vs. Southern Illinois      Â
*WSU hosts Southern Illinois (11-9, 4-3 MVC) for a 6 p.m., Tuesday tip on CBS Sports Network with Andrew Catalon and Steve Lappas.
*This is the Shockers' first meeting with the Salukis in 2017. WSU swept last year's season series and has won each of the last seven.
*SIU enters the weekend in a three-way tie for third in standings. The Salukis are 2-2 on the Valley road with losses at Bradley (51-60) and Drake (84-88, OT) and wins at Missouri State (75-67) and Evansville (73-61).