‘I’ve got to deliver’: Examining Craig Porter’s latest late-game heroics for Wichita State
For the first 35 minutes of Thursday’s game at Temple, Wichita State senior point guard Craig Porter was strapped with foul trouble and couldn’t find a rhythm.
But all it took was 66 seconds of game action for Porter to reverse his fortune and deliver his latest masterpiece of crunch-time excellence to help the Shockers secure their first victory at Liacouras Center with a 79-65 win over Temple on Thursday.
With WSU trailing entering the final five minutes, Porter snapped out of his funk to hit the go-ahead three-pointer, make an on-the-money alley-oop pass in transition for another basket, then deliver the dagger with another step-back triple — all in a 66-second span.
So how exactly did Porter shake off what had to be mounting frustration with his performance for the majority of the game to succeed when it mattered the most?
“Coach IB has got so much confidence in me, so when a coach has that kind of confidence in you, then it’s hard not to have confidence in yourself,” said Porter, who scored eight of his 10 points during WSU’s 21-3 close to the game and also added eight rebounds and six assists. “He knows that I can make these big plays and he puts me in a position where I’ve got to deliver, so that’s what I did.”
Here’s a look at how Porter tortured Temple’s centers during his onslaught to help the Shockers rally from a deficit to win their fourth straight road game.
‘It was kind of an easy call’
Trailing 62-61 entering the final five minutes, WSU dialed up its weave offense to put the ball in motion and make Temple’s defenders work on the perimeter. But the weave action around the arc is actually just window dressing for what WSU really wants to set up: Porter coming off a high ball screen by center Kenny Pohto.
Temple’s defense switched everything, meaning when Pohto set the pick for Porter, it left 6-foot-11, 280-pound center Jamille Reynolds on an island with WSU’s star point guard.
“Once we saw (Reynolds) come back into the game, we kind of switched up what we were doing because he’s a little slower in the pick-and-roll,” Porter said. “Once they started switching everything, it was kind of an easy call. Once I saw him switch off on me, I knew I was going to get an open shot no matter what.”
Porter said he felt empowered by WSU head coach Isaac Brown, who placed the trust in his senior point guard to make a play for his team — despite what had been a muted scoring day to that point.
“When they were switching, we just spread it out and let Craig Porter go and he took advantage,” Brown said.
Reynolds is a defensive force when he’s standing in the paint, altering shots at the rim, but he’s not as comfortable defending on the perimeter. Porter took a dribble to size up his defender, identified enough space to launch a three, then executed a rhythm dribble between his legs to freeze the larger defender and fired away. The contest was late and the shot was pure, as Porter’s triple put WSU in the lead, 64-62, for good.
‘Just run, run, run’
In WSU’s scouting report prepared before the game, there was a suggestion to Porter to look for Pohto running the floor in transition when Reynolds was in the game.
“I knew the scout coming into the game that he was a really big dude, but he’s also kind of lazy,” Porter said. “That just comes with the size. I kept telling Kenny the whole game, ‘Just run, run, run. I’m going to hit you one of these times.’”
That time came in one of the game’s biggest moments.
Following Porter’s go-ahead three, Reynolds badly missed a turnaround jump shot that Porter corralled to start a fast break. Reynolds was a few strides ahead of Pohto when Porter took off, but Pohto didn’t forget the seed that had been planted in his head — keep running.
Porter had his eyes on Pohto the entire time and when Pohto came even with Reynolds, the point guard noticed Reynolds’ head was turned, not watching the ball, so Porter lofted an alley-oop pass from 30 feet away to the streaking Pohto.
It was a gutsy decision: If the pass was off-target, a turnover would have halted WSU’s momentum and given Temple another chance to tie or take the lead. But Porter put it on the money, right above Pohto’s head where the big man could jump, catch and lay it up all in one motion.
The scouting-report bucket gave WSU a 66-62 lead and forced Temple to call a timeout with 3:56 remaining. Reynolds was subbed out and did not return in the game.
‘You wish that wasn’t the case’
After another defensive stop, Brown made a repeat call for WSU to go back to its weave offense to see if Temple was once again willing to put its center on an island against Porter.
During the timeout, Temple coach Aaron McKie had subbed in Kur Jongkuch, a springy, 6-foot-10 senior who had helped the Owls pull off the switch-everything defense that fueled their 13-0 run midway through the second half. The call for Temple’s defense remained the same: switch everything.
Jongkuch presented a different matchup for Porter, as he picked up the point guard outside the 3-point line. But it didn’t matter much to Porter, who easily shed Jongkuch with an attack dribble, then a devastating step-back move that created all the separation Porter needed to bury what amounted to be the dagger.
“(Switching everything) is what we did to get back in the game,” McKie said. “We started doing a lot of switching and it took them out of their rhythm. We just didn’t execute on the offensive end. But obviously when you look back on it, you wish that wasn’t the case where one of your big guys was on a smaller guy who is crafty with the ball.”
This story was originally published February 17, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
.jpg)