‘You don’t grow in easy’: Shockers embrace lessons from losing to return to winning

As frustration mounted and the losses piled up, what resonated with Wichita State men’s basketball head coach Paul Mills was his players’ refusal to make excuses.

It would have been easy to point fingers during an eight-game losing streak, the program’s longest since 2001.

Instead, the Shockers kept stacking days in practice with the belief that their work would soon be rewarded. On Sunday, it finally was in the form of a 77-72 win over SMU at Koch Arena.

There is only so much to celebrate when a win moves the record to 9-11 overall and 1-6 in American Athletic Conference play, so a feeling of relief would be a better way to describe the reaction following Sunday’s win over a top-40 KenPom opponent.

“I had a pastor tell me earlier this week that he’s never had anybody come up to him and say, ‘I had the three easiest years of my life and I’ve learned and grown so much,’” Mills said. “That’s not where growth occurs. You learn and grow in obstacles and difficult times. You don’t grow in easy. Again, this is just one game, but you appreciate so much of those lessons.”

After falling short down the stretch of close games to Temple, Florida Atlantic, South Florida and East Carolina, WSU’s problems in late-game situations seemed to be as much mental as execution-based.

Mills has said during the losing streak he wanted the team to face its problems head on and he gave the players credit for never shying away from tough criticisms in the film room.

On Sunday, the Shockers not only rid themselves of their past problems — they made them their strengths.

WSU fully capitalized on winning the rebounding battle with a 21-4 edge in second-chance points. After turning the ball over 11 times in the first half, WSU finished with just one turnover in 28 second-half possessions. WSU shot a perfect 6-for-6 from the foul line in the final three minutes.

Add it all up and the Shockers outscored SMU 12-2 in the final three minutes to earn the victory. It was a testament to the players’ mentality, Mills said.

“If you don’t approach that stuff with humility and you’re arrogant and feel like you’ve got nothing to learn and start making excuses on why things didn’t go your way, you’ll never grow and you’ll never learn,” Mills said. “Our players approached the last six weeks with a great deal of humility. Arrogance will get you beat. And our guys have handled it well. You get lessons out of this that pay dividends down the road if you stay engaged, and our guys have stayed engaged.”

WSU earned the respect from SMU coach Rob Lanier following the performance.

“They did a lot of things well and credit to them,” Lanier said on his radio show. “To lose eight in a row and still have the wherewithal to compete and outwork us in this game is a real credit to them.”

Maintaining that attention to detail during such a long losing streak — WSU went 43 days in between wins — was difficult, but players said they always kept their belief in the team.

“It was frustrating, nobody likes losing like that,” WSU junior Ronnie DeGray III said. “But we all knew those games were right there and we could compete in this league. It sucks that we’ve lost the games that we’ve lost, but we know we’re right there.”

“It feels like a step in the right direction,” WSU guard Harlond Beverly added. “We’ve been really, really close and we just haven’t been able to capitalize at the end to come out on top. We did that (Sunday) and it’s a step in the right direction for us to keep improving going forward.”

The next challenge for WSU is to make sure the SMU win doesn’t become a one-off performance. The Shockers will look for their first conference road win with the upcoming swing of games at Tulsa (11-8, 2-5 AAC) at 6 p.m. Wednesday and at Memphis (15-5, 4-3 AAC) at noon Saturday.

Mills said he doesn’t want the players to discard the past six weeks of losses, rather he wants the players to continue to learn from them.

“It’s not like all of a sudden things go your way once and you forget it,” Mills said. “We’ve got to remember there’s a mature way to play and there’s a disciplined way to play.

“Everybody has a gift and the reason you have gifts is you give them away. I don’t want to waste days. If we have a gift that we’re not giving away, we are wasting a day. ... Players have to understand and learn the value of every single one of these possessions. You can learn from that, but if you regress and start playing immature basketball, then you can easily find yourselves on the wrong end of this stuff again.”

Wichita State at Tulsa basketball preview

Records: WSU 9-11, 1-6 AAC; Tulsa 11-8, 2-5 AAC

When: 6 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Reynolds Center, Tulsa, Okla.

How to watch: ESPNU (Mike Corey with Mark Adams)

Radio: KEYN, 103.7-FM (Mike Kennedy with Bob Hull)

KenPom says: Tulsa 75, WSU 73

Series history: WSU leads 77-63

Projected starting lineups

Wichita State Shockers (9-11)

Coach: Paul Mills, first season, 9-11

Tulsa Golden Hurricane (11-8)

Coach: Eric Konkol, second season, 16-33