By GoShockers.com
FORT WORTH, Texas — Wichita State used a big second half to put away Tulsa, 81-63, Thursday evening in American Athletic Conference Championship first round action at Dickies Arena.
Craig Porter Jr. scored 10 points and handed out a career-high 11 assists (most ever by a Shocker in a conference tournament contest) in 28 turnover-free minutes.
Kenny Pohto (13 points), Jaron Pierre Jr. (13), James Rojas (13) and Jaykwon Walton (11) also reached double-figures for sixth-seeded WSU (17-14), which advances to Friday’s quarterfinal round and will take on No. 3 seed Tulane at just over 8 p.m. CT on ESPNU.
WSU shot 56.9% from the field to Tulsa’s 40.7%.
Tim Dalger scored a game-high 21 points on 5-of-8 three-point shooting for No. 11 seed Tulsa (5-25), which finished the year on a 12-game losing streak.
Up 30-25 at halftime, the Shockers made 17 of their first 21 shots to start the second half and extended their lead to as many as 26 points down the stretch.
“We came out in the second half and we just focused on fundamentals: defending, rebounding, playing with toughness, playing inside-out,” head coach Isaac Brown said. “I thought our veteran guys — Rojas, Craig Porter Jr – those guys took control of the team. We built up a lead and we held on at the end with our young guys defending, rebounding, and playing with that same type of toughness.”
WSU matched its season-high with 48 points in the paint, making 24-of-33 shots (.730).
The Shockers scored the first 10 points of the game and led wire-to-wire, avenging last year’s first round loss to the Golden Hurricane.
NOTABLE:
Porter’s 11 assists were tied for the most by a Shocker without a turnover in the last 25 seasons. Fred VanVleet handed out 11 as part of a triple-double line against Missouri State in February, 2015.
WSU has won at least one game in four of its five AAC tournament appearances and improved to 5-4 overall.
The Shockers swept three games from Tulsa in the same year for just the second time in school history. The 1987-88 squad also did it.
WSU has won 20 of the last 23 meetings with Tulsa and now leads the all-time series, 77-63.
