It is a sad sight to see two once proud basketball rivals in a game like this.

Quite honestly, this was really dreadful basketball.

With limited crowd enthusiasm with two traditional archrival basketball teams, Wichita State had the clear upper hand, coming out on top of an almost unwatchable 72-62 decision Wednesday night in front of a crowd of 3,454 at the Reynolds Center.

Wichita State (15-13, 5-9 AAC) would normally bring a few thousand fans to this game to flood Tulsa's arena throughout the years. This time, however, about 50 Shockers fans were enough to give Wichita State the enthusiasm to prevail.

How does one even start to analyze this mess?

For starters, how about Tulsa getting outrebounded 43-19 against a Wichita State team that isn't that big or athletic, and usually gets outrebounded in AAC play? The 6-foot-8 Morris Udeze had 15 points and 11 rebounds. He averages 10.2 and 6.0.

"We didn't rebound and that really, really killed us. It really comes down to that," said TU coach Frank Haith.

Tulsa (9-19, 3-14) was playing shorthanded, with essentially only 8 men available. Well, really 10, but two of those available haven't gotten a second of meaningful time this season.

The biggest loss is not having promising freshman point guard Anthony Pritchard available. The former Webster HS star was on crutches with a sock on his right foot after a foot injury suffered in the previous game.

Without Pritchard to run the team, which he had done really well at times this season, Curtis Haywood was drafted to convert to point guard.

"We've got two guys playing the point guard position who have never played it," Haith said of Haywood and Sam Griffin.

The 6-foot-5 Haywood did the best he could in his second game ever at point guard, but Tulsa just didn't have much firepower. Incredibly, Tulsa had only three turnovers all game to 12 assists, and Haywood finished with 7 points, 2 assists, 2 steals, and only one turnover.

Most importantly, in 32 plus minutes, Haywood had a plus/minus ratio of plus one. Without him in the game, TU collapsed.

The most unbelievable stat of the game was that Tulsa had zero turnovers in the first half and still trailed 38-29 at halftime.

Of course, 0 of 7 on three-point shooting in the first half, and 3 of 18 overall, isn't going to win many games while finishing at 41.2 percent from the floor.

Especially frustrating was that dynamic combo guard Sam Griffin was essentially invisible all game. Averaging 14.8 points, Griffin didn't score until the 1:29 mark when TU was down 12. He was 1 of 11 from the floor.

Jeriah Horne scored 15 points and had 6 rebounds to lead TU, but wasn't a factor down the stretch, as was the case with Darien Jackson, who also had 15 points. LaDavius Draine added 10 points.

Tulsa's defense was again, like it has been most of the season, painful to watch. The Shockers, normally a bricklaying team at 38.6 percent from the floor in AAC play, was 49.1 percent for the game.

"We had missed defensive assignments, and that really hurt us," Haith said.

When TU allows a non-entity like Qua Grant, averaging 2.5 a game in conference games, to score 13 points on 6 of 8 shooting, it is not going to be a great game for the Golden Hurricane.

Leading scorer Tyson Etienne, not a great shooter by any stretch, hit 6 of 11 from the field and led all scorers with 18 points. Etienne averages 14.9 points on 35.5 percent shooting.

Tulsa trailed by only 3 points at 53-50 midway through the second half, but did little after that, with a 10-0 WSU run from that point knocking TU out of the game.

Old-time TU and Wichita State fans can remember the glory days of the rivalry in the 1980's with the likes of Paul Pressey, Steve Harris and Ricky Ross against Shockers legends Antoine Carr, Xavier McDaniel, Aubrey Sherrod, etc.

This game had none of that.

With the Shockers suffering through a lousy season of their own, at least they can have a little fun with this game.

The fun for TU hoops hasn't been there in a season that can't end soon enough.

The last game of the regular season for TU is Sunday afternoon against UCF, and then on to Fort Worth for the AAC tourney.