Emptying the notebook: A new defense, improved shooting among Wichita State takeaways
After interviewing coaches and players, watching film and studying the statistics from a 99-53 exhibition game victory for the Wichita State men’s basketball team over Emporia State on Sunday, The Eagle empties the notebook with quotes, stats and observations to take away from the performance.
Shockers unveil a more aggressive defense
WSU could be described as more of a passive defense when it came to pick-and-roll coverage last season.
Coach Paul Mills almost always had Quincy Ballard or Kenny Pohto in drop coverage, meaning it was the job for the big man to hang back to protect the paint and for the guard to chase over screens. In the end, many talented scorers dribbled freely into uncontested jump shots.
Mills wants that to change this season and showed on Sunday the aggressive changes he has made to WSU’s defensive style.
Now when the opponent called for a pick and roll, WSU blitzed the ball handler with the guard and big man trapping aggressively and a help defender rotating over to take away the pass back to the big man. That left three offensive players for two defenders to guard, a gamble WSU is willing to make with the hope of forcing more turnovers.
The new coverage relies on good communication with the off-ball defenders and some serious hustle from the big man, who has to sprint to a new mark after trapping the guard.
“We are trying to get 30 deflections in a game, and I think we had 12 (in the first half),” Mills said. “I thought it took us a little while to get going. I don’t think we were as aggressive as we needed to be, especially early. I thought they were able to get into the paint way too easily.”
WSU’s defense held Emporia State to 0.78 points per possession, as the Hornets shot 35% from the field and committed 13 turnovers (for a 19% turnover rate).
“I would say that we were pretty good, but we can for sure improve,” WSU senior Harlond Beverly said. “There were sometimes they would have a swing-swing, then an open shot in the corner, but I thought our rotations were good. We were trapping the ball when they drove baseline and then people would try to spin back and we would get steals off that. It’s still a work in progress, but I feel like it was a really good step.”
Beverly was one player who did show relatively well on the defensive end.
He provided the defensive highlight of the game halfway through the first half when he stonewalled a drive by Emporia State’s Arhman Lewis, poked away the ball, then stonewalled another drive and stripped the ball clean away from Lewis to start a fast break that ended with a corner 3 by Xavier Bell.
“We do a lot of drills that keep the ball in front and we play a lot of 1-on-1,” Beverly said. “There’s good reps and they build for the game. We all take pride in defense. That’s really going to be the whole team identity.”
WSU shooters stepping up to show offseason work
There’s a long way to go before earning the respect of defenses, but the early returns on the offseason shooting work were encouraging for WSU on Sunday.
A year ago, defenses weren’t shy about sagging off Harlond Beverly, Bijan Cortes and Bell and practically begging them to shoot outside shots. For good reason: the trio combined to shoot 25.7% (44 of 171) on 3-pointers.
According to WSU coach Paul Mills, all three have improved their accuracy this summer. On Sunday, the results matched with the trio combining to knock down 66.7% (6 of 9) of their triples against Emporia State.
“(Cortes and Bell) both know they needed to (improve),” Mills said. “Those guys understood where we were and we were very transparent about everybody we were bringing in and I think that maybe motivated them. The competition in practice is really good for those guys and I’m glad it played out like that. They’re not going to shoot (6-of-9) every night, but they are plenty capable.”
Mills in particular believes a bounce-back year is in store for Cortes, who made 50% of his 3s (17 of 34) at Oklahoma before shooting just 28.6% beyond the arc for the Shockers last season.
On Sunday, Cortes didn’t hesitate to fire away from deep and drilled both 3-pointers he took in the opening four minutes. Mills said seeing Cortes shoot with confidence was an important step in the process of restoring his name as a sharpshooter.
“It’s something that I’ve always had,” Cortes said. “I just have to go out there with confidence and do it. It’s something I worked on a lot this summer. Just being consistent and trying to make sure when it’s open, I’m shooting them.”
Opposing defenses aren’t likely to be inspired just yet to mark Beverly, Bell and Cortes down as shooters on their scouting report, but Sunday’s initial showing was an encouraging one for an offense that could certainly use the additional spacing in the half court.
An early look at WSU lineup combinations
After spending all of the offseason preaching ball security and better decision making, perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise for Paul Mills’ first starting five of the season to include two point guards.
Justin Hill and Cortes were paired together and joined by Beverly, Corey Washington and Ballard. The unit played a little less than four minutes together, scoring on its first five possessions and thrashing Emporia State 12-2 before substitutions began.
It is worth noting that after Hill and Cortes shared the court to begin the game, the duo never played together again for the remainder of the game.
Hill may be a newcomer, but he is the most proven of WSU’s guards, which could explain why he was limited in playing time on Sunday. He played another five-minute burst halfway through the first half, then another five-minute stretch to open the second half before conceding the rest of the game to Cortes and freshman Zion Pipkin. Hill finished 1-of-5 shooting with four points and a steal in 14 minutes.
Mills said the substitution patterns to begin each half were scripted.
After pulling Hill early, Mills reinserted the senior floor general to run with the second unit of A.J. McGinnis, Bell, Ronnie DeGray III and Matej Bosnjak. The group was a plus-six in more than five minutes together on the court.
To start the second half, Mills tinkered with the starting five and inserted Bell and DeGray in place of Cortes and Washington. That new-look five was a plus-eight in nearly five minutes before Mills pulled the starters and played the end of the bench for the final 15 minutes.
All 13 players saw at least nine minutes on the court, while no one played more than 21 minutes.
WSU also successfully escaped the contest without any further injuries, as senior center Zane Meeks and freshman wing T.J. Williams were both inactive on Sunday as they recover from knee injuries.
A quiet debut from the Croatian big man
Those inside the program agree Croatian big man Matej Bosnjak can be a difference-maker for the Shockers this season, given he is granted eligibility by the NCAA.
Bosnjak received a temporary waiver to participate in Sunday’s exhibition, but still needs to receive clearance to play in the Nov. 4 season-opener at Western Kentucky.
But in his first public action on Sunday, the 6-foot-9, 240-pound center didn’t exert himself like he has done at times this summer. In fact, Bosnjak played a bit timid given the competition level and his size advantage inside.
The big man had a handful of times he seemed to have position inside, but instead looked to kick out to teammates. In the end, Bosnjak missed all three field goals, but made 4 of 6 free throws and finished with four rebounds, two assists and two turnovers in a team-high 21 minutes.
“I thought Matej was still getting used to the pace,” WSU coach Paul Mills said.
“I didn’t think we put enough pressure on the rim with our bigs,” Mills later continued. “I thought we hung out on the perimeter a little bit too much. Just from an offensive flow standpoint, it wasn’t too pretty. We’ve got some work to do from an execution standpoint.”
A tidy offensive performance from the Shockers
The 99 points were the most WSU has scored in an exhibition since 2017, while the team extended its winning streak in exhibitions to 30 games.
WSU delivered the kind of efficient offense one would expect given the competition, as the team shot 52% from the field, 40% on 3s and 75% on free throws. Add it all up and the Shockers pumped out a tidy 1.43 points per possession for the game, a number that peaked at 1.56 PPP with 9:31 remaining in the second half and WSU in front 81-38.
The offense was at its best with senior Harlond Beverly on the floor, as the Shockers scored 55 points in 32 possessions (1.72 PPP) and outscored Emporia State by 29 in Beverly’s 19 minutes. Ballard (1.69 PPP) and Cortes (1.67 PPP) also shared the floor for almost all of WSU’s best minutes, while the Shockers held Emporia State to 11 points in the 23 possessions (0.48 PPP) senior Hill was on the court.
This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
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