Big Game Leads to Big Honor for Udeze

Wichita State junior Morris Udeze is the American Athletic Conference Player of the Week for Jan. 11-17.

Udeze scored a career-high 20 points and matched another with eight rebounds in the Shockers’ 72-53 win over Tulsa last Wednesday. He was 6-of-7 from the field and 8-for-9 at the foul line.

Udeze is WSU’s second player of the week in 2020-21, joining Dec. 28 winner Tyson Etienne.

It’s the first weekly honor of any kind of Udeze, who scored 18 in his previous outing against Cincinnati (Jan. 10) and is now averaging a team-second 9.4 points-per-game.

The Houston native is shooting 58.5 percent from the field this year. That would be the second-highest season percentage by a Shocker in the last 30 seasons (minimum 3 FGM/game) behind Ryan Martin, who finished the 2006-07 campaign at 58.8 percent.

Wichita State (8-3, 4-1 American) returns to action 6 p.m. CT, Thursday at Memphis (6-5, 2-2). The game will air nationally on ESPN2.