The RoundHouse | 2/28/2019 9:52:00 PM

 
Confidence is never an issue for Wichita State senior Samajae Haynes-Jones, who always believes the next shot is going in the basket. That belief allows him to bounce back from a bad game or a bad half, rely on hours of shooting practice and take the next one.
 
"Where would we be without him?" Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall said after a 65-63 win over UConn on Thursday at Koch Arena.
 
On Thursday, Haynes-Jones went into the huddle and told his coaches and teammates he wanted the ball with the score tied with 6.4 seconds remaining. It took him three seconds to dribble past half court and another two to get near the baseline and jump off his right foot to loft a running shot with his left hand while sailing across the end line.
 
It was an outrageously difficult shot and it swished through the net as the buzzer sounded. His teammates mobbed him and the happy pile fell into the sofa at the end of the court.
 
"I knew it was a bucket," Haynes-Jones said. "I've shot that a lot in my life. Just relax and knock it down."
 
Marshall watched with an unobstructed view from the opposite sideline. He watched his senior guard give him Shocker win No. 300 with a bucket for the ages.
 
"I knew it was good," Marshall said. "Beautiful arc."
 
The Shockers (14-13, 7-8 American Athletic Conference) won for the sixth time in eight games. UConn (13-15, 4-11) lost its sixth straight.
 
Marshall wanted either Haynes-Jones or Markis McDuffie to get the shot. McDuffie moved to set a screen, but Haynes-Jones didn't need it when he saw a lane down the sideline and only one defender marking him. One Huskie hung out near the foul line, guarding no one, until he realized too late that Haynes-Jones was cruising toward the basket.
 
"It's a tough shot," Marshall said. "But you know he's going to get a shot, in that situation, with a full head of steam, he's going to get a shot because he's so quick."
 
UConn didn't pressure Haynes-Jones, giving him a clear view of the path to the basket.
 
"I was going so fast there was no screen," he said. "I just relaxed and made the shot."
 
Haynes-Jones, as Marshall said, tends toward highs and lows. He carried the Shockers with 21 points against Baylor, 22 against Temple, 18 at East Carolina and 17 at Tulsa, on 5-of-10 three-point shooting. Against Memphis, he missed 11 of 13 shots.
 
Thursday provided a high, one that few in Koch Arena will forget. Haynes-Jones notched his second buzzer-beater after beating SMU with a reverse layup on Jan. 30 at Koch Arena. He joined Toure Murry, who beat the buzzer to knock off Evansville and Missouri State in 2009, to repeat on the list of winning shots.
 
He gave Marshall his 300th win at Wichita State and a belated birthday present.
 
"It's just amazing," Haynes-Jones said.
 
Marshall called out former Shockers, assistant coaches and his support at Wichita State for win No. 300. He is 300-111 in 12 seasons at Wichita State and 494-194 in his career.
 
"Lot of great players," he said. "So many wonderful young people. Wonderful crowd support. That shot right there was just the tip of the iceberg in how blessed I have been as a coach. It will be a great one to remember."
 
Wichita State trailed 37-27 in the second half. Marshall called their look "glazed." 
 
"I didn't like our life and the way we going about it," he said.
 
A zone press changed the mood in the arena quickly. It invigorated the Shockers, disrupted UConn and energized the fans. UConn coach Dan Hurley said his team got tentative against the press. 
 
"Then when we tried to attack it, we got a little bit out of control," he said.
 
Marshall needed to change things up after a swampy 25 minutes of half-court basketball that favored UConn. The press did that and the Shockers cut the lead to 40-35 with 12:27 to play. 
 
"You have to have energy and passion to play that defense," he said. "We needed more possessions and we needed to get energized."
 
Asbjorn Midtgaard provided a good burst of that energy to help the Shockers grab the lead. He blocked two shots with the Shockers up 47-46. After the second, he sprinted to get open and Jamarius Burton passed to him for a dunk and a 49-46 lead.
 
"He saved our butts down there with the blocks," Burton said. "He got rewarded at the end and the crowd got into it."
 
Marshall set his sights on sixth place in the American after the win. There is no easy path in a conference tournament that requires the bottom eight teams to win four games in four days.
 
There is, however, a big difference between sixth and seventh. The No. 6 seed opens against the No. 11 seed, likely to be East Carolina. The No. 7 seed gets No. 10, which could be UConn. The No. 6 seed also likely lives on the opposite side of the bracket from Houston. 
 
The Shockers are in a good position to win out with a game at struggling SMU on Sunday, followed by home against ECU and a trip to last-place Tulane. Wichita State is tied with USF at 7-8 in sixth, two games behind fifth-place Memphis.
 
"If we can finish sixth, it's so much better than seventh," he said. "We need to try to finish sixth. It's going to be a tough one Sunday down in Dallas."
 
USF finishes at UConn, at Tulane and at home vs. SMU.
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.