The staggering numbers behind Wichita State’s offensive team transformation this season
It’s not often an offense undergoes such significant transformation during the same season like the offense of the Wichita State men’s basketball team this season.
The Shockers won 81-63 over Tulsa in the opening round of the American Athletic Conference tournament in Fort Worth on Thursday, finishing with 57% shooting from the field, 24 assists on 33 made baskets and 1.23 points per possession.
It was hardly an aberration. WSU’s offense has been humming for two straight months now, a drastic turnaround from the first two months of the season when the offense was objectively dreadful.
During WSU’s 7-8 start to the season, the offense was scoring a tick under 1 point per possession, its effective field goal percentage (47.3%) ranked No. 322 in the country and its assist percentage (41.5%) ranked almost dead-last (No. 358) in the country.
But in the last 16 games, which has featured 10 wins, the Shockers are scoring 1.10 points per possession and their effective field goal percentage (54.1%) and assist percentage (57.6%) would rank top-35 nationally. WSU cut down on its 3-pointers and is averaging 35.6 points in the paint during that span and shooting 57.5% on 2-pointers, which ranks No. 7 nationally.
It’s been a stunning turnaround for a team that struggled mightily to generate open looks and make them for the first two months of the season. In fact, WSU finished with six assists or fewer a total of six times during that span.
After a season-high 24 assists, the program’s most since Nov. 16, 2019, the Shockers are averaging 16.3 assists in their last 16 games.
Senior point guard Craig Porter, who dished out a career-high 11 assists against Tulsa, has been the orchestrator of the team’s offense.
Here’s a look at the four different ways Porter was able to puncture Tulsa’s defense and set up teammates for easy baskets.
1. Empty pick-and-roll
Credit goes to WSU head coach Isaac Brown for recognizing a blip in Tulsa’s weak-side defensive discipline.
He made sure to clear out an entire side of the floor to give Porter and sophomore center Kenny Pohto all the room they needed to operate in the pick-and-roll game.
Because Porter is so deadly turning the corner, most defense decide to have their big man hard hedge when Porter is coming off a ball screen.
By taking away the defender in the strong-side corner, WSU left Tulsa with no natural help defender in place to help off and prevent Pohto from rolling to the rim.
WSU will sometimes run a false action on the other side of the court — like a stagger screen for Jaron Pierre to run off of — to further distract the defense’s attention.
Meanwhile, Porter made it look easy against Tulsa, drawing two defenders, finding the angle for the pocket pass to Pohto and setting the big man up for three easy scores at the rim.
2. Reading the tagger
When WSU ran its double drag screen play in transition, it had more of a traditional setup — with shooters spotted up in both corners.
That means when the center rolled to the basket, Tulsa did have a defender in a natural position to tag the roller.
Porter made perhaps his most impressive assist of the night in the first seven minutes of the game when this setup played out on a transition play.
After setting a screen up top for Porter, center Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler rolled to the basket, which forced the weak-side corner defender to drop down and tag him. Usually this is a safe play because that defender’s man is the furthest away from the ball and they could recover in time if a skip pass is made.
Usually is the key word there. Not this time, as Porter not only made an NBA read on Tulsa’s pick-and-roll defense, but he also dissected it with an NBA skip pass — a 2-handed, overthrow bullet that hit Jaykwon Walton perfectly in the shooting pocket, allowing him to comfortably step into a corner 3-pointer that he buried.
Not many 6-foot-2 point guards in college basketball can make that kind of pass. That one will end up on Porter’s highlight reel for professional scouts.
3. Manipulating the defense with his eyes
Porter diced up Tulsa’s zone in the second half and used his eyes to do most of the damage.
How did he do it? By exploiting the first rule of all zone defenses — take away passes to the free throw line.
On a possession midway through the second half, Tulsa was set up in a 2-3 zone and Poor Bear-Chandler floated around the free throw line, which slowly brought up Tulsa’s middle defender.
Porter recognized the bottom defender cheating closer and closer to the free throw line, while Rojas was left completely unguarded directly underneath the basket.
Porter waited until the bottom defender had inched his way one step from the free throw line before firing a no-look laser beam straight over the top of the defense, right where Rojas could catch it high, not have to bring it down and go straight up for the uncontested layup.
On the very next possession, Tulsa continued with its no-middle, 2-3 zone and Porter again picked it apart with his eyes.
This time it was just a simple swing pass, as Walton was spotted up on the right wing and Porter was handling the ball at the top of the key with Poor Bear-Chandler once again hanging around the free throw line.
Porter stared down Poor Bear-Chandler and gave a hard ball fake, which made Tulsa’s wing defender commit hard to trying to jump the pass. As soon as the defender’s momentum was going the wrong way, Porter swung a no-look pass right back to Walton, who again was able to step into an open 3-pointer that he swished.
4. Spontaneous play-making out of weave offense
When WSU went to its dribble weave offense on the perimeter, Porter showed off his spontaneous play-making ability early in the second half.
Porter took the dribble hand-off from Xavier Bell, gained a step advantage on his defender going to the left, then spun back to his right — straight into a second defender who had crashed down to the free throw line to cut off Porter.
But Porter already had his head up when he was spinning and identified the second defender but they could strip him of the ball. The senior maintained his poised and James Rojas made the right read to dive to the basket after his defender had bailed on him along the arc.
Instead of dribbling into a turnover, Porter sniffed out the double team and hit Rojas in stride on his cut for a rim-rattling dunk while being fouled. The 3-point play boosted WSU’s lead to double-digits and set the tone for the second half.
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