RH: Shockers Hold Off Western Kentucky – Wichita State Athletics

By Paul Suellentrop
 
Road wins are quite often about having the best player on the court in your jersey. It helps when that best player is also the guard who runs the game and scores in tense moments.
 
On Monday, Wichita State enjoyed the benefits of great guard play in its 91-84 win at Western Kentucky. Senior Justin Hill, in his first game as a Shocker, scored 31 points, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out six assists.
 
While Western’s Babacar Faye also played a superb game, he went scoreless for almost nine minutes late in the game when the Shockers limited him with their defense. Faye scored 28 points, but only five in the game’s final 13 minutes.
 
Hill, with the ball in his hands almost all the time down the stretch, helped the Shockers build a lead and then hold off a rally by the Hilltoppers. Good guards – Wichita State fans know several from recent seasons – give a coach that comfort.
 
Hill, a senior transfer from Georgia, scored WSU’s final seven points at the foul line. He scored nine of Wichita State’s final 13 points. He made perhaps the game’s biggest basket, a step back jumper after shaking a defender, with 3:53 to play to give the Shockers an 80-71 lead. The Shockers didn’t commit a turnover in the game’s final eight minutes. Hill, dealing with a full-court press much of that time, kept the Shockers from making game-changing mistakes.
 
 

ON. HIS. HEAD.@American_Conf | #SCTop10 pic.twitter.com/5eGpR6NyZV

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— Wichita State Men’s Basketball (@GoShockersMBB) November 5, 2024

“Justin – welcome to Shocker nation,” Wichita State coach Paul Mills said in his post-game radio interview.
 
Not many Shockers have made a better first impression. Hill’s career-high 31 points are the most for any Shocker in their debut game, topping Bob Wilson’s 29 in 1972 at Oregon State. He tied Jamie Thompson’s 1965 scoring performance against New Mexico State for No. 4 on the list of most points in an opener.
 
That is the type of guard play needed to win on the road, especially against a 2024 NCAA Tournament team picked second in Conference USA. Mills chose to open on the road against a solid opponent to express confidence in a veteran bunch and get an immediate read on their capabilities and grit. Hill played a large role in making that bet pay off.
 
“We wanted to test ourselves early and get us a win and that’s what we did,” Hill said in his post-game TV interview. “This team has a high ceiling.”
 
Mills went to work in the off-season on Wichita State’s issues last season – when it won two road games and went 15-19. The Shockers turned the ball over way too much and shot poorly. It kicked away leads and lost close games, largely because of those shortcomings.
 

On Monday, the Shockers showed progress in those area, even while slipping into bad habits late in the game. They finished with 14 turnovers, 10 in the first half. They made 26 of 36 foul shots (72.2 percent) and survived a poor stretch in the final minutes. Most important, they made 11 of 27 three-pointers (40.7 percent) to outscore Western Kentucky (6 of 25).
 
“You never win pretty on the road,” Mills said on the radio. “We’re a lot better than what we showed. I wanted to challenge them. We’ll get a lot of confidence from it.”
 
Winning on the road is the hardest things to do in college basketball. The Shockers, when many teams open with an overmatched opponent in their home gym, elected to do it the hard way. They played their first opener on the road since a loss at Alabama in 1992 and won an opener on the road for the first time since 1984 at Lamar.
 
Good guard play can make hard things look a little bit easier, as Justin Hill and the Shockers showed on Monday.
 
 

Road dubs hit different. pic.twitter.com/57ihaQ5Q5s

— Wichita State Men’s Basketball (@GoShockersMBB) November 5, 2024

Paul Suellentrop writes about Wichita State athletics for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.