Spiders Stumble Early in Loss at Wichita State

Wednesday, November 29

Wichita, KS

7:30 PM

University of Richmond

4-3,0-0Atlantic 10

Wichita State

7-1,0-0AAC

Richmond

Wichita St.

11/29/2023 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

WICHITA, Kan. — Richmond found itself in a 12-point hole just over five minutes into Wednesday's game at Wichita State, one the Spiders were never fully able to climb out from.

UR made just one of its first 11 field goal attempts, while the Shockers started 7-10 from the field, building their lead to as many as 13 in the opening half.

"I thought we had open shots but most of them were threes early," said Spiders coach Chris Mooney. "When you don't make those that feels worse. That's a little bit more of a difficult thing to overcome because they're open and you don't want to pass them up but all of a sudden you've shot four, five, six in a row."

Richmond eventually found its offensive footing, scoring 28 points in the final 13 minutes of the first half to shrink Wichita State's lead to 33-31 at halftime. Jordan King scored UR's final seven points of the half to give the Spiders momentum heading into the locker room.

Again, the opening minutes of the half belonged to the Shockers, as Wichita State scored seven straight to stretch its lead to 40-31 just over two minutes into the second half.

"When you have a test like this against this talented of a team you have to be ready," said Mooney. "And I just thought we were on our heels a little bit to start the game and to start the second half."

The Spiders regrouped again, closing the gap to 46-43 with 15 minutes to play. But Wichita State regained control with a 10-0 spurt, and Richmond was never able to seriously threaten the Shockers down the stretch, falling to 4-3 on the season as WSU improved to 7-1.

Wichita State's 80 points and 52 percent shooting from the field were the best by any Spiders opponent this season.

"I don't think we executed enough what we wanted to do defensively. We really wanted to be in there tight, "said Mooney. "We weren't, and we gave them too much space. I think it took us a little bit of time defensively to say 'this is what we practiced this is what we worked on.'"

Neal Quinn led Richmond with 18 points, shooting 9-13 from the field against the Shockers long, talented frontcourt. He is averaging 19.7 points and shooting 67 percent from the field over his last three games.

"With the way Neal's been playing, he needs to really touch the ball every possession. He's scored on really, really good big guys now, especially this season," said Mooney. "And he needs to get the ball and we need to run our offense through him."

Jordan King finished with 17 points, while Isaiah Bigelow added 11. Dji Bailey led the Spiders with eight rebounds, tying a career high, and five assists to go along with seven points.

"I thought Dji was great," said Mooney. "He was creative. He was on the backboard. He defended."

With a pair of starters 6'10" or taller, the Shockers were able to prevent the Spiders from getting to the rim for much of the contest. UR attempted just three free-throw attempts, its fewest in a game since January 4, 2014 at Florida (also three).

The Spiders will return to action Saturday at 6 PM at the Robins Center against William & Mary. The game will be broadcast on ESPN Plus and Monumental Sport Network.