BOCA RATON, Fla. (GoShockers.com) – Wichita State continued its winning ways with a 75-68 road win at Florida Atlantic Thursday night.
Wichita State (16-10, 6-7) upped its winning streak to five in a row, while snapping Florida Atlantic’s five-game win streak in the process.
Xavier Bell recorded his sixth 20-point game of the season with a game-high 24 points on 8-of-19 shooting and 7-of-8 free throws. Bijan Cortes put together his second straight stellar outing with a career-high 16 points and seven assists to go with it.
Harlond Beverly added 10 points and Quincy Ballard pulled down 12 rebounds.
Wichita State shot 49.1 percent from the floor, including an efficient 6-of-10 from three-point range.
Wichita State jumped out to a 10-3 lead just 3:41 into the game, forcing an early FAU timeout. The timeout provided a spark for the Owls as they immediately responded to tie the game at 12.
The Owls grabbed their only lead of the half with 10:03 left, 18-17, but it would quickly be erased by a Wichita State 15-0 run. At 32-18, Wichita State had its largest lead of the half and would lead for all but 2:31 in the first 20 minutes.
FAU pulled within single digits in the final minute and would trail, 36-28, at the half following a Harlond Beverly backdoor dunk on a baseline inbounds play.
Wichita State shot nearly 50 percent from the field in the first half and held the Owls to just 34 percent. The trio of Bell (9), DeGray (9) and Beverly (8) combined for 26 of the team’s 36 points in the first half.
FAU opened the second half outscoring Wichita State 20-11 over the first 7:37 to grab its first lead since the 10:03 mark of the first half. With momentum and the crowd back into it, Wichita State silenced the FAU faithful with eight unanswered.
After Wichita State went back up 55-48, the Owls had another response with their own 7-0 spurt to tie the game at 55 with 7:29 to go.
Wichita State kept its composure and rattled off six in a row on back-to-back Cortes triples.
The Owls made one last push with 1:27 left and the Shockers holding a 68-62 lead. A triple cut the margin in half but a Bell layup with 34 seconds left pushed it back to a five-point advantage.
After two Bells free throws made it 72-65, FAU splashed in a corner three, cutting it back to four. During an FAU timeout, the Owls picked a poor time to draw a technical foul. An FAU assistant coach was assessed a technical arguing a no-call on the three-point attempt.
Bell would stroll to the line and sink 3-of-4 free throws to ice the game.
Up Next
Wichita State opens a two-game homestand on Sunday vs. Tulane at 1 p.m. on ESPN+.
