No one has climbed the ranks of collegiate hoops faster in the last 10 months than the boys from Wichita State. Their Final Four appearance and near victory over eventual national champion Louisville sent shockwaves throughout the college hoops world.
Their 2013 performance has been followed up by a 24-0 start to this year. Their success has built built on balance but, in particular, a superb defense that ranks in the top ten in efficiency.
But the strength of schedule for the Shockers has been something of a letdown. Their ability to grab a number one seed hinges on their ability to navigate successfully through a MVC conference slate that is much weaker given Creighton’s departure to the Big East.
Of the remaining conference games they have left in this regular season, the game they will play today could be as interesting as it gets. Northern Iowa is a young, but talented ball club which beat the likes of VCU on their home floor earlier this year and also took Iowa State to overtime on a neutral floor.
The Panthers and coach Ben Jacobson get it done with an offense that ranks 30th nationally. Seth Tuttle and Deon Mitchell formulate a scoring nucleus that has enabled this club to play up to their competition at times this year. Both are juniors who waited their turn to become central figures at a program that has been as consistent as it gets over time in the MVC.
But the alarming issue for them in their last two games is the absence of 6’9 foreword Nate Buss. Buss is the third leading scorer for this club and is set to miss yet another game is he has been diagnosed as out 2-3 weeks with a partially torn meniscus.
Buss is a valued contributor in the low block area where he averages roughly 11 PPG to go along with 5 RPG. His being out hurts this team significantly as they are no longer as formidable on the inside. Buss is also a very efficiency three point shooter, connecting on 41% of his looks from deep.
Buss’ absence hurt this team significantly in two losses to Indiana State and Illinois State. The road loss to the Redbirds was particularly troubling as they surrendered 76 points to a very weak offensive group. Buss ability to command the paint area along with Tuttle could open up a lot for the Wichita bigs inside.
This spread opened at 6.5 and is still hanging in that region with some books dropping to six. I don’t see value in taking Wichita at that number, but given the injury to Buss and the overall lack of depth the Panthers have, this figure should probably be closer to 7.5/8.
Look for the Panthers to come out fired up and perhaps test the Shockers early on, but they simply don’t have enough to sustain a run at an upset over the course of 40 minutes.
