‘Playing with joy’: Bijan Cortes finds breakthrough in latest Shocker basketball win
Bijan Cortes was down.
And when the senior point guard is down, it has a peculiar way of impacting the rest of the Wichita State men’s basketball team.
In this particular instance, Cortes had let a few bad moments — 0-for-3 shooting with two turnovers in just 10 minutes — rob him of his joy. Without an energized Cortes, the Shockers struggled to eke out a 70-66 win over Monmouth.
WSU assistant coach T.J. Cleveland had a heart-to-heart with the Kingfisher, Oklahoma, native following the game.
“Bijan is a happy-go-lucky guy, but sometimes he gets down on himself,” Cleveland said. “I just reminded him that this game has been good to you and your teammates need you and you bring us a different vibe when you’re happy and you’re playing with joy.”
The lesson: don’t let one or two bad plays ruin an entire game.
Cortes was immediately put to the test this past Friday against Saint Louis when the first play of the game was run to him in the corner and he had the ball stripped and knocked off him for a turnover.
It was the kind of early mistake that could have derailed the rest of the game for Cortes if he had let it. But instead of playing scared to make another mistake, Cortes kept his confidence by remembering the conversation he had earlier in the week with Cleveland.
“I know it’s something that I’ve got to keep working on,” Cortes said. “Keeping my head up and knowing that the people around you are still going to lift you up and help you. Coach Cleveland did a great job of instilling confidence in me.”
Not long after his mistake, Cortes helped win a possession back by being in the right position on a defensive rotation, jarring the ball loose and diving on the floor for a steal.
Later in the first half, in a roughly three-minute span, Cortes showed his aggression by scoring in transition on a floater, then fighting through a screen to dislodge a handoff and knock it out of bounds for a turnover. He then connected on one of his patented alley-oop passes to Quincy Ballard.
The joy had returned to Cortes’ game, evident by his ponytail bobbing in excitement on the way back down the floor.
“Bijan brings a different type of energy to us,” forward Corey Washington said. “That’s one thing I talked to him about is just being yourself. Don’t care about what anybody else has to say or their opinion. When he is locked in like that, it makes us dangerous.”
WSU head coach Paul Mills has scolded Cortes previously this season for playing passively. It has been an ongoing process for Cortes to remain confident enough to be aggressive through mistakes.
That’s why the game against Saint Louis felt like somewhat of a breakthrough. Cortes committed two early turnovers, but still managed to play his best game of the young season: 10 points, three assists and a steal. The coaches believe it wasn’t a coincidence WSU played perhaps its best game of the season in an 88-63 dismantling of Saint Louis.
“Sometimes that one turnover can impact the rest of the game (with Cortes),” Mills said. “But he did a great job of turning the page and moving on to the next play.”
Cortes’ confidence was brimming in the second half, as he embraced Mills’ demands to look for his shot. On the first play after halftime, Cortes used a screen from Ballard and instead of looking for the lob, drove the lane and hit another floater. The next time down the floor, Cortes received a pass on the wing and noticed the defender was a step inside the arc and let a 3-pointer fly that swished to give WSU its first double-digit lead of the game. Later in the second half, when his defender ducked under a screen, Cortes didn’t hesitate to fire again from the outside for another triple.
A confident, aggressive Cortes is the best version of the point guard for the Shockers.
“When he’s playing with pace, he’s dangerous,” Cleveland said. “He just has to continue to have fun out there and just be himself. When he’s not himself, it not only affects him, but the whole team.”
Justin Hill, who shares the ball-handling duties with Cortes, has only played five games with him, but has already noticed the difference Cortes can make on the Shockers.
“When he’s yelling and having a good time and bringing energy, that gets the whole team going,” Hill said. “We feed off of his energy. We keep telling him to shoot those 3s in a game. It was good to see him finally shoot them and see them go in, like what we’re used to seeing in practice.”
It’s strange to label a player averaging a modest 4.6 points and 1.8 assists as an X-Factor for a team, but Cortes has the unique ability to raise the Shockers’ ceiling.
He believes he has turned a corner and it comes at a good time for Wichita State, which next heads to Orlando for the ESPN Events Invitational for two of its hardest tests in nonconference play against Minnesota and then either Florida or Wake Forest.
“I feel like this game opened up the season for me,” Cortes said. “It felt good to just go out there and play free and know that I have teammates who can help me and boost my confidence up, whether I’m playing good or bad. My focus now is just going out there and playing the next play and playing my hardest. That’s all it is.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2024 at 6:03 AM.
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