WICHITA - Wichita State unlocked the awesome power of passing in a 71-58 win over Norfolk State, Saturday evening at Charles Koch Arena.
The Shockers (7-2) banked a season-high 18 assists on 25 baskets and committed a season-low eight turnovers.
Morris Udeze and Tyson Etienne tallied 16 points-each to lead the scoring, while Craig Porter Jr. and Ricky Council IV both set new career-highs for assists with seven and six respectively.
“It’s good to see that,” head coach Isaac Brown said. “I like the fact that those guys are sharing the ball. We talked about that after our last loss (to K-State). We wanted to execute at a high level on offense.”
Dana Tate, a transfer from Rhode Island, scored a game-high 22 points on 5-of-6 three-point shooting to lead Norfolk State (9-3), the defending MEAC champion.
WSU shot 45.5 percent from the field and held the visiting Spartans to 37.0 percent.
Five Shockers combined for a season-high seven dunks. Udeze and Council had two-apiece and Dexter Dennis, Joe Pleasant and Kenny Pohto added one-each.
WSU entered the game ranked among the bottom-50 nationally in both assists (11.1) and assist-to-turnover ratio (0.76) and had finished with more assists than giveaways just once through the first eight games of the season (Nov. 13 vs. South Alabama; 13 assists, 12 turnovers).
The Shockers’ assist number could have been much higher were it not for an 0-for-12 stretch late in the first half.
WSU used a 14-0 run to build up a 22-7 lead with 11:27 to play in the period but went the next 10 minutes without a field goal against NSU’s matchup zone.
The Spartans crawled back to within half-a-dozen at the intermission, 29-23.
Brown made a key halftime adjustment against the zone by putting the ball in the hands of Council inside the key hole.
“He was matched up against a bigger guy, and he was able to drive the basketball and make some plays and get other guys shots,” Brown said.
WSU shot 53.6 percent in the second half and came away with points on nearly 60 percent of its possessions to rebuild the lead. Council scored seven of his nine points and dished out four assists in that span.
Udeze made 5-of-7 shots and all six free throw attempts to go with a team-high seven rebounds.
“Mo is really scoring it on the block. The guards are getting him the ball, and he’s doing a good job of staying out of foul trouble and making free throws”
Etienne busted out of his shooting slump to knock down 6-of-11 shots, including 4-of-9 three-point tries. He was +17
“The guys did a good job of getting him some wide-open looks, especially in transition,” Brown noted. “When he can make shots, we can really start to score the basketball.”
Dennis also finished in double figures with 10 points. He drilled his 150th career three-pointer early in the game, becoming just the 10th Shocker to reach that milestone.
Defensively, Dennis limited NSU’s leading scorer Joe Bryant (14.7 points coming in) to nine points on 2-of-13 shooting.