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Tyson Etienne

First-Place Shockers Travel to Tulane Wednesday

3/2/2021 3:05:00 PM

rv/rv WICHITA STATE (13-4, 9-2) at TULANE (9-11, 4-11)
WEDNESDAY, MAR. 3, 2021 | 5:01 P.M. CT
NEW ORLEANS, LA. | AVRON B. FOGELMAN ARENA IN THE DEVLIN FIELDHOUSE
TV: ESPN+
RADIO: KEYN 103.7 FM (GoShockers.com/Listen)
SERIES: WSU leads 5-0 (1-0 in New Orleans)
LAST: Feb. 3, 2021 in Wichita (WSU, 75-67)
 
 
TICKETS:
With the exception of player pass lists, games at Avron B. Fogelman Arena in the Devlin Fieldhouse are being played behind closed doors this season. Single-game tickets are not available.
 
#WATCHUS:
The game will air on ESPN+ with Jack Benjamin (PxP) and David Grubb (Color) on the call. ESPN+ subscribers can stream live and on demand via the ESPN App. 
Subscriptions for the ESPN+ app are $5.99 monthly or $49.99 annually and can be packaged with Hulu and Disney+ streaming services.
 
SHOCKER RADIO:
Listen live on KEYN 103.7 FM and online at GoShockers.com/Listen with Mike Kennedy (pbp) and Bob Hull (analyst). Kennedy is in his 41st season as Voice of the Shockers. Pregame coverage begins one hour prior to tipoff.
 
 
OPENING TIPS:
  • The Wichita State Shockers are in New Orleans Wednesday night to take on the Tulane Green Wave.
  • The Shockers control their own destiny in the race for first-place. If they win out this week, they'll secure their first American Athletic Conference regular season title.
  • WSU is in action for the first time since removing the interim tag from head coach Isaac Brown last Friday.
  • WSU has won all five meetings with Tulane, including a 75-67 victory in Wichita back on Feb. 3. Tyson Etienne scored 22 points to lead the way. Jordan Walker paced Tulane with 23.
  • This is only the second Shocker visit to New Orleans in four seasons since joining the American. On Mar. 9, 2019, Dexter Dennis hit a corner three at the buzzer to give WSU an 82-79 victory.
  • WSU has a pair of Louisiana natives on its roster: Dennis (Baker, La.) and junior Remy Robert II (Baton Rouge).
  • Brown's hometown (Pascagoula, Miss.) is less than two hours from New Orleans along the Gulf Coast.
  • WSU is receiving votes in both major polls. Its 21 Coaches Poll points is the equivalent of No. 30 nationally.
  • The Shockers are in action for just the second time since Feb. 10. Their only game in that stretch (Feb. 18) was a 68-63 upset of No. 6 Houston.
  • WSU has had nine AAC postponements due to COVID-19 protocol -- all of them the fault of the opposing team.
  • The Shockers are riding the longest five-game winning streak in school history, last losing Jan. 21. That stretch has seen more postponements (7) than games played.
  • WSU is 4-2 in true road games.
  • In 12 short months, Etienne has gone from role player to conference player of the year contender. The 6-foot-2 guard is averaging 17.2 points and 2.9 threes-per-game on 39.2% accuracy. He's the AAC's three-time player of the week.
  • Morris Udeze (9.5 points) is on pace to set a school record for field goal percentage (.630). He blocked a career-high five shots in the win over Houston.
  • UConn grad transfer Alterique Gilbert (10.5 points) leads the team in assists (3.6) and steals (25).
  • The Shockers are holding opponents to 40.0% from the field, including 28.6% from three. Both marks rank among the national leaders (26th & 13th as of Tuesday).
  • WSU has played 15 games against D-I opponents this year. All but two have been decided by 10 points in either direction. The Shockers are an incredible 8-1 in games decided by five-or-less. Those eight wins are tied for the national lead.
  • With a win, Brown would tie Gary Thompson for the best 18-game start by a first-year head coach in the program's modern era. Thompson led the 1965 Shockers to the Final Four and was MVC Coach of the Year.
  • Two of The American's top scorers will share the floor Wednesday. Etienne (17.2) is No. 4 on the league list, followed by Tulane's Jaylen Forbes (17.1). Both players are relatively new to the go-to- scorer role. Etienne averaged just over 9.0 points as a freshman. Forbes averaged 2.7 points in just over 10 minutes-per-game for Alabama last year.
 
 
SCOUTING TULANE:
  • Head coach Ron Hunter is in his second year at Tulane after taking Georgia State to three of the last five NCAA tournaments. He's amassed 466 wins in 27 total seasons at Tulane, GSU and IUPUI.
  • The Green Wave tripled their win total in his first year (from four to 12) and improved from 0-18 to 4-14 in conference play, however they return just two rotation players from that roster:  5-11 junior Jordan Walker and 6-9 sophomore Nobal Days.
  • Walker (12.5 ppg, team-high 4.3 assists) ranks among the league leaders in steals (2.7).
  • In addition to four new freshmen, Hunter is leaning on a talented crop of four-year transfers:
  • 6-4 sophomore Jaylen Forbes -- from Alabama -- has made the biggest impact. He's the team's leading scorer (17.1) and rebounder (5.3) and ranks among the league leaders in threes (2.7), free throw percentage (97-of-117, .829) and minutes (36.0).
  • Forbes is averaging a league-best 17.7 points in conference games and has topped 30 in two of the last three games. He put up 37 points on 7-of-10 shooting Friday at Cincinnati.
  • 6-2 Gabe Watson (Southern Miss) averages 8.2 points.
  • 6-8 sophomore Kevin Cross (Nebraska) averages 6.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and has blocked a team-best 15 shots.
  • Tulane has consistently won the turnover battle this year (+3.95).
  • The Green Wave are also shooting a league-best .754 at the foul line. 23.8% of the their points have come on free throws (fourth-highest percentage nationally).
 
 
MATCHUP MASHUP:
  • WSU coach Isaac Brown's hometown (Pascagoula, Miss.) is less than two hours from New Orleans along the Gulf Coast. He finished his collegiate career in upstate Louisiana, helping ULM to the (1993) NCAA tournament as a senior.
  • Assistant coach Billy Kennedy has even deeper Louisiana ties. He was on staff at Tulane during the 1989-90 season and helped head coach Perry Clark restart program after a four-year absence. Kennedy played and later served as head coach at Southeastern Louisiana.
  • Tulane assistant Kevin Johnson worked two years under WSU's Kennedy when the latter was head coach at Centenary (1997-99).
  • WSU had never had a Louisiana native on its roster prior to 2019. Now it is has two: Junior guard Dexter Dennis (whose hometown of Baker, La. is less than 100 miles from New Orleans) and first-year walk-on Remy Robert II (from Baton Rouge).
  • Dennis' mother, Dawn McQuirter, played collegiately at Grambling. He is a distant cousin of Aaron James, the first player ever drafted by the expansion New Orleans Jazz.
  • Tulane assistant Ray McCallum was head coach at Detroit from 2008-16 and twice faced the Shockers as part of ESPN's BracketBusters series.
  • Tulane was one of four American foes that WSU had never faced prior to its 2017-18 debut (along with ECU, Tulane and USF). WSU is a combined 21-1 against those four teams with the lone loss coming in 2019 at USF.
  • Mickey Loomis, general manager of the NBA's Pelicans and the NFL's Saints, earned his maste's degree in sport administration from Wichita State in 1982.
  • WSU is the only AAC team that has held Jaylen Forbes to single-digit points this year (9). Jordan Walker picked up the slack in that first meeting. His 23 points are a season-high.
  • Tyson Etienne has topped 20 in both career meetings with the Green Wave. He had 20 as a freshman and 22 earlier this year.
 
 
THE SERIES:
  • WSU leads 5-0 (2-0 in Wichita), 1-0 in New Orleans.
  • The Shockers took last year's lone meeting (Feb. 16, 2020) in Wichita, 82-57, after racing to a 30-point halftime lead. Tyson Etienne and Dexter Dennis each topped 20-points.
  • WSU swept two games during the 2018-19 season, winning 77-62 in Wichita behind Markis McDuffie's 25 points. The Shockers overcame a nine-point deficit in the final 10 minutes to win their first (and so far only) visit to Fogelman Arena, 82-79, on Louisiana native Dexter Dennis' three-point buzzer-beater.
  • The 13th-ranked Shockers won the inaugural meeting on Feb. 21, 2018 in Wichita, 93-86, despite playing without star point guard Landry Shamet (illness).
  • Prior to 2019, WSU had played three others times in New Orleans but never against Tulane. A loss to the University of New Orleans in the 1982-83 season opener was one of just three suffered by the Shockers, who were led that year by Antoine Carr and Xavier McDaniel. WSU's lone victory in the Big Easy came in the 1981 Midwest Regional Semifinal, played inside the Louisiana Super Dome. Mike Jones' last-second jumper (known in Shocker lore as "the shot") gave WSU a 66-65 win over in-state rival Kansas in "The Battle of New Orleans." Two days later, WSU fell to top-seed LSU in the Elite Eight.
 
 
WSU-TULANE GAME-BY-GAME:
 
Feb. 21, 2018 (Wichita) | #13 WSU 93, TLN 86
Playing without point guard Landry Shamet (illness), the Shockers had just enough fire power to fend off Tulane's NBA-bound duo of Melvin Frazier and Cameron Reynolds… Frazier scored all 22 of his points after halftime for the Green Wave, which trailed by 16 at the break but then scored 55 second-half points on 61.8% shooting…. Shaquille Morris scored 25 points, and Conner Frankamp (18) and C.J. Keyser (12) stepped up with new career-highs.
 
Feb. 9, 2019 (Wichita) | WSU 77, TLN 62
Markis McDuffie scored 18 of his game-high 25 points in the first half to lift WSU to its fourth-straight victory after a 1-6 conference start… It was McDuffie's tenth 20-point game of the season, and he would add three more by the end of the year… Tulane attempted 28 free throws to WSU's 14 but shot 36.7% from field. Connor Crabtree and Caleb Daniels paced paced the Green Wave with 17-each… WSU held Tulane scoreless for the first six minutes of the second half and used a 17-3 run to stretch a six-point lead to 20 with 11:58 to play in the game.
 
Mar. 9, 2019 (New Orleans) | WSU 82, TLN 79
Louisiana native Dexter Dennis sank a corner three with no time on the clock to give WSU an 82-79 victory over Tulane… Tied at 79, WSU inbounded under the Tulane basket with 0.5 seconds left. Dennis flashed to the near corner, caught a pass from Ricky Torres and uncorked the game-winner a split-second before time expired… Samajae Haynes-Jones scored a team-high 15 points for WSU on 3-of-8 three-point shooting. Caleb Daniels scored 31 of his game-high 36 points in the second half for Tulane, which lost its 20th-straight game and became the first American team to finish 0-18… The second half featured wild momentum swings. WSU led by nine at the break. Tulane outscored the Shockers 27-9 over the first 10 minutes of the second half to build its own nine-point cushion. WSU scored 36 points over the final 10:17… Down 60-52 at the 8:52-mark, WSU used a 9-0 run to take the lead back, and the teams traded the clutch baskets the rest of the night.
 
Feb. 16, 2020 (Wichita) | WSU 82, TLN 57
Dexter Dennis and Tyson Etienne both topped 20 points to lead WSU to a 25-point rout of Tulane…WSU led by 30 at halftime (50-20)… Dennis scored a career-high 21 points on 8-of-9 shooting to go with nine rebounds. He was 4-of-5 from deep… Etienne (20 points) tied WSU's freshman record with six three-pointers on eight attempts… WSU went +17 on the glass (48-31) but had 16 turnovers to Tulane's eight… Dennis drilled three triples and Etienne hit back-to-back for a 24-10 lead. WSU's transition game keyed another 17-2 run.
 
Feb. 3, 2021 (Wichita) | WSU 75, TLN 67
Dominant first-half defense carried WSU… Tyson Etienne scored 22 points on 4-of-7 three-point shooting and Alterique Gilbert chipped in 17 points, six rebounds and four assists… Dexter Dennis tallied eight points with four blocks and spearheaded a strong defensive effort on Tulane's Jaylen Forbes, who entered the day ranked sixth on the conference scoring list but was 0-for-13… Jordan Walker totaled 23 points and four assists for Tulane  which shot just 30.8% for the night, including 4-of-25 from three but converted 23-of-26 free throws… The Shockers outrebounded the Green Wave, 43-36, but lost the turnover battle 13-6… Tulane managed just 19 first-half points on 18.2% shooting. Walker hit a three on the game's first possession, but the Green Wave went over 8:00 without another point, missing 12-straight shots. Etienne supplied 10 points during a 13-0 Shocker run... Tulane missed another 11-straight shots later in the half, and WSU went into the locker room with a 12-point cushion... Both teams picked up the scoring pace after halftime. Gilbert sank three free throws for a 21-point Shocker lead – 59-38 – with 7:39 to play. Tulane used a 13-0 run to close within seven, but Etienne made a three and Gilbert converted a four-point play to put the game out of reach.
 
 
THIS DAY IN SHOCKER HISTORY: March 3
1954 -- 12th-ranked Wichita won its fourth true road game in a 10-day span and closed out a 27-3 regular season with a 76-60 victory over NCAA tournament-bound Oklahoma City. Bob Hodgson scored 17 to lead the Shockers, who went on to play in the NIT.
1969 – Greg Carney scored 31 of his game-high 39 points after halftime and the Shockers rallied from a 14-point first-half deficit to upset No. 19 Tulsa in overtime, 95-87. Greg Rataj poured in 22 points after a scoreless first half.
1983 -- Xavier McDaniel supplied 19 points and 16 rebounds -- in the first half! -- on his way to 34 and 20 in WSU's 97-96 double-overtime win at Bradley.
2006 -- Playing for the first time ever as a No. 1 seed at Arch Madness, the MVC champion Shockers blew past Indiana State, 81-63. Conference player of the year Paul Miller led a group of five double-figure scorers with 15 points.
2017 -- WSU led by 26 points at halftime (42-16) in an MVC quarterfinal win over Bradley at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. The Shockers went on to win, 82-56, and cut down the nets two days later.
 
 
A SHOCKER WIN WOULD...
... make them 14-4 (10-2 AAC).
... keep them on track for their first AAC title.
... give them a season-best six-game winning streak with victories in 13 of their last 15.
...make them 5-2 in true road games.
... extend their series lead over Tulane to 6-0 (2-0 in New Orleans).
 
A SHOCKER LOSS WOULD...
... drop them to 13-5 (9-3 AAC).
... snap a five-game winning streak.
... knock them out of first-place in the conference standings.
... drop their road record to 4-3.
... be their first to Tulane (5-1) and make them 1-1 in New Orleans against the Green Wave.
... be less good than a win.
 
 
UP NEXT:
Due to the cancelation of their finale at Temple, the Shockers will now host South Florida on Saturday. The Noon CT tipoff airs on ESPN+.
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