The season’s first true road trip, to VCU, always promised to be Wichita State’s toughest challenge in its non-conference slate.
Coach Gregg Marshall had to worry about how to prepare one of college basketball’s most inexperienced teams for VCU’s famed Havoc defense in front of a raucous crowd at the Siegel Center, which registered its 124th consecutive sellout on Saturday.
That was before a concussion prevented Dexter Dennis from playing for WSU, leaving Marshall with four scholarship guards to play a three-guard system. And before foul trouble began piling up in the first half, forcing Marshall to play a walk-on for the final five minutes.