Craig Porter scores career-high to lead Wichita State basketball to senior day blowout win
When Craig Porter is remembered for his time on the Wichita State men’s basketball team, his final game at Koch Arena would be a perfect encapsulation of the player he became in his three years as a Shocker.
Need scoring? Porter delivered a career-high 24 points in the regular-season finale.
Need someone to run the offense? He handed out five assists and orchestrated an offense that made 50% of its shots.
Need defense? He matched his career-high with five blocks and has cemented his status as the nation’s best 6-foot-2 shot-blocker this season. Oh, and he added five rebounds and two steals for good measure.
Porter did a little bit of everything for the Shockers in their 69-49 win over South Florida and put on one last all-around show for the 7,532 fans in the Roundhouse. He exited the game with chants of “CP3” and received the loudest ovation in the senior day ceremony following the game, a nod to his 3-year career that was highlighted by the program’s first American Athletic Conference championship in 2021.
“All of my family got to come down for this, so I wanted to put on a show for them and leave Koch Arena with the best that I could,” Porter said. “So that’s what I did. This is what I want to be remembered for at the end of the day. And I’m glad I got to do it here.”
In a season defined by its home struggles, Wichita State ended with its strongest performance — in conference play, at least — to improve to 16-14 overall and 9-9 in AAC play to finish sixth in the conference standings. The Shockers will play last-place Tulsa (5-24, 1-17 AAC) at 6 p.m. Thursday in Fort Worth with the winner advancing to face No. 3 seed Tulane in Friday’s quarterfinals.
WSU held USF to 16 points and sub-23% shooting in the second half, turning a competitive game into a rare blowout win for the Shockers. The Bulls finished with 0.75 points per possession, the lowest by a WSU opponent in conference play this season.
“That was a great way to finish it off,” said WSU senior James Rojas, who finished with 10 points and six rebounds. “That gives us some momentum to get going in the tournament. We’ve got to go win four to get to where we want to get.”
Porter and Rojas are constant starters, but they were joined in the starting lineup for the game by fellow seniors Gus Okafor and Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler. All four seniors played well and contributed to the win, which made for a happy senior day celebration following the victory.
It has been a particularly up-and-down season for Okafor, who was a key player in the rotation for the first two months of the season and then fell out of the rotation for much of the last two months. WSU head coach Isaac Brown said Okafor has handled the adjustment like a professional and repeatedly used “high-character kid” to describe him afterward.
The 6-foot-6 senior showed no rust on Sunday, scoring eight points — the most he’s had in a game since Nov. 29 — and grabbed seven rebounds, including five offensive boards to help give his team second chances. In his 19 minutes, he was a spark.
“I’m a hooper, so when my number gets called I’m always ready to go,” Okafor said. “Once I saw my first shot go in, I felt like I was good to go.”
WSU played its second straight game without leading scorer Jaykwon Walton, who has been away from the team due to an illness. Brown confirmed after Sunday’s game that he “expects” Walton to play in Thursday’s opening-round game in Fort Worth.
A beneficiary of Walton’s absence in terms of playing time has been Wichita native Xavier Bell, who scored 11 points — the most he’s scored since Nov. 29 — off the bench.
While it was Porter who helped WSU build a 49-36 lead early in the second half, it was Bell who stepped up in response to USF trimming the deficit to 49-41 with 10:44 remaining. The Andover Central graduate drilled a three, then scored a floater on back-to-back possessions to restore WSU’s double-digit lead, which it maintained for the final nine minutes of the game.
South Florida (14-17, 7-11 AAC) was looking for its first 4-game winning streak since 2019 and was in striking distance at halftime, trailing 36-33 after a half where the Shockers committed eight turnovers and allowed the Bulls to score nine second-chance points from nine offensive rebounds.
Those second-chance opportunities dried up in the second half when Brown challenged his players at halftime to make a commitment to rebounding better. After rebounding fewer than 61% of USF’s misses in the first half, WSU gave up just one offensive rebound in the second half and secured 95% of the possible defensive rebounds.
“They were getting easy offensive rebounds and easy buckets off of them in the first half,” Rojas said. “Once we shut down their offensive rebounds, they really weren’t getting much in the half-court or in transition. We knew once we stopped that, we would be good.”
Rojas in particular soaked up the experience of playing in his final game at Koch Arena. Although he spent only one year in Wichita, he was able to play routinely in front of his son, Zayden.
“When I was in foul trouble the first half, I was down on myself, but then I see him right behind our bench and hear him so I can’t be mad anymore,” Rojas said. “He sparks me, for sure.”
With the team’s strong play away from home this season and its progress on offense, the Shockers believe they are capable of surprising outsiders in Fort Worth.
The players hope there is still more to come in their careers as a Shocker, but on Sunday, they could appreciate their final appearance in a WSU uniform at Koch Arena.
“I’ve just been thinking about all of the memories made here the last three years and everybody I’ve met and all of the good people here,” Porter said. “It’s been a lot of fun. Even when I wasn’t able to do what I wanted on the court, off the court I was having the most fun in my whole life with these guys. I couldn’t be more happy with where I’m at right now.”
This story was originally published March 5, 2023 at 2:50 PM.
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