Wichita St. routs Illinois St. 74-58 for 5th-straight win

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Fred VanVleet and Anton Grady scored 16 points apiece and Wichita State routed Illinois State 74-58 on Saturday for its fifth-straight win.

The Shockers (23-7, 16-2 Missouri Valley) entered having already clinched their third-consecutive conference title, and snapped a two-game skid against Illinois State (18-13, 12-6).

DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell had 15 points and MiKyle McIntosh 14 to lead the Redbirds, who end their regular season tied with Evansville for second in the conference standings. The tie will be broken using Jim Sukup's RPI Report on Sunday. The team with the better RPI will be the No. 2 seed into the conference tournament.

It was tied at 20-all midway through the first half before Wichita State pulled away on a 26-8 run to close the period and build a 46-28 halftime lead. The Shockers stretched it to 25 points with 7:31 remaining and cruised from there.