When his time came, Wichita State’s Ricky Council was ready in Oklahoma State win

Huddled together in the Wichita apartment of Morris Udeze this summer, Ricky Council IV used to fantasize about a night just like the one he just had in Stillwater on Wednesday.

He has spent so much time thinking about what it would be like to take over a game down the stretch that it didn’t seem like a big deal when he did just that at Gallagher-Iba Arena.

He has spent so much time practicing his moves in empty gyms and in 1-on-1 battles that it felt like second nature to him when he poured in nine of his game-high 17 points in the final six minutes to lead the Wichita State men’s basketball team to a 60-51 win over the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

“Shoot, I was just playing my game,” Council said when asked about delivering under pressure. “Humbly, it wasn’t nothing crazy, in my opinion. I was just getting to my spots and shooting. And then when they helped too much, I was dishing it. I was just playing my game, for real.”

Basketball can be a complex game, but it can also be pretty simple.

On Wednesday, it was simple: Wichita State won because it had Council and Oklahoma State did not.

Council had a game-high 17 points on 7 of 11 shooting, made all three of his three-pointers, and finished with seven rebounds, four assists, three steals and a block. WSU obliterated OSU 56-26 in the 29 minutes Council was on the floor and lost the 11 minutes he was on the bench 25-4.

“No matter who we play, it could be an NBA team, Ricky feels like he’s the most talented guy on the floor. He really does,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “I think having that confidence helps you become a good player and it’s not a lot of pressure on you.”

Council is the type of player who obsesses over film, especially after what he feels like are poor performances. After he committed four turnovers in the Missouri win last Friday, Council stayed up until 4 a.m. on the bus ride pouring over the film to dissect what went wrong.

He noticed he was often making the right decision to drive to the basket, but finishing with the wrong decision. He was either forcing wild shots over contests from 6-foot-11 centers, waiting too late to hit the kick-out pass or trying to force a pass that wasn’t there — the typical learning curve for a player with less than 30 Division I games under his belt.

That’s why it was such an encouraging sign of growth late in the second half when Council drove and drew two Oklahoma State defenders in the air trying to swat his shot. In the first six games of the season, Council has been forcing a shot in that scenario that typically led to a bad miss. But this time, Council anticipated the help defense coming and dropped off a pass to Udeze for an easy lay-in.

A similar moment came midway through the second half when Council once again broke down his defender with a move to the basket and instead of forcing a shot over two defenders, he flipped the ball behind his head to Udeze for a basket and what became a three-point play.

“After Missouri, I just felt like I got to step it up because I felt like I wasn’t playing my game,” Council said. “I was critiquing myself, seeing how I was forcing things. When I got to my crossover this time, I was open but I knew they were probably going to jump at the last second, so I threw it behind to Mo and he caught it and finished it.”

He’s still working through some turnovers, but Council is blossoming this season as a playmaker. It’s taken his game to another level, which allowed him to carry WSU’s offense in a game where leading scorer Tyson Etienne (five points on seven shots) was largely silenced by OSU’s aggressive defense.

But what makes Council so valuable is a scoring tenacity that cannot be coached. There are players who score points and there are bucket-getters and Council is a rare breed of the latter.

When Council is cooking, Brown doesn’t even have to call a set play to get him a shot. All WSU did the final six minutes of the game was funnel the ball to Council up top and get out of his way to let him go to work.

In the final six minutes, Council went 4 for 4 from the field and scored nine straight points to turn a one-point deficit into a five-point lead for the Shockers in the final minute.

“It was something we kind of expect out of Ricky, to be honest,” WSU point guard Craig Porter said. “We see that every day in practice. We’re going to expect more games like that the rest of the season now.”

Council started the scoring binge with a fade-away jumper to give WSU a 49-48 lead, its first of the second half. He tacked on three more the next possession when WSU ran a clear-out play for him on a throw-in under its own basket, as he took one dribble backward and launched a three that connected.

Then OSU rallied to trim WSU’s lead to one and switched its elite ball-stopper Isaac Likelekele, who was the main culprit behind Etienne’s quiet night, onto Council for the final two minutes. It didn’t matter, Council plowed through an all-Big 12 defender like a random student at the Heskett Center.

On the first matchup, Council took a dribble handoff moving right, crossed over to cut back to the free throw line, pump-faked Likekele, then canned an off-balanced, 15-footer. The next time down, Council called for a straight isolation at the end of the shot clock and shook Likekele so thoroughly with his crossover move that it allowed him a straight path to the basket for a lay-in and 56-51 lead with 1:11 remaining.

“By the time I switched onto (Council), I felt like he had already got it going,” Likekele said. “He hit a very tough mid-range where I was in the air and then the second was just a great move. He’s a high talent. He did good tonight.”

“Combos,” Udeze said when asked what makes Council such a difficult guard. “He takes you one way, then he goes the other way. Just his combos and he gets to his spots very well. He’s tough to guard.”

No matter how easy Council made it look, scoring on isolation attempts in crunch-time of close games is an incredibly difficult task, even more so against an Oklahoma State defense that was ranked in the top-10 nationally in efficiency before Wednesday’s game.

“I don’t think people really understand exactly how tough it is to do what he did,” WSU junior Dexter Dennis said. “I’m sure on TV it looks a little different. But it’s extremely tough, believe that. Those are crucial moments, make-or-break moments that can change the game. If you come up empty or turn it over, then that can swing the game to the other team. Everything is super crucial in those moments and he was cooking and we leaned on him.”

It was arguably the most significant performance of Council’s young career at WSU, just about single-handedly carrying his team to a road win over a quality Big 12 opponent.

One has to wonder, did Council ever feel pressure down the stretch in those make-or-break moments?

“Not at all,” Council said.