‘Just be you’: The three words that unlocked a new Bijan Cortes for Wichita State
For the second year in a row, Bijan Cortes has saved his best for last in the American Athletic Conference tournament.
So much so that Wichita State men’s basketball assistant coach T.J. Cleveland has coined a March nickname for the point guard: “Tourney B.”
Cortes earned every bit of adulation — and the Stetson cowboy hat awarded to him for being the player of the game — on Thursday when he scored a career-best 20 points to go along with seven assists and no turnovers in Wichita State’s 73-68 win over South Florida to advance to Friday’s quarterfinals against top-seeded Memphis.
“I’m very confident right now, especially with the people that I’m around,” Cortes said. “They tell me every game when I go out there, ‘Just be you, look to score, be aggressive.’ And that just comes with all of my teammates, so I’m really confident.”
In his first 47 games in a WSU uniform, Cortes averaged just 4.1 points and attempted just 4.3 shots per game. In his last eight games, he is averaging 11.5 points and 10.5 shots per game.
The coaching staff will tell you that level of aggression was always residing inside Cortes, it was just a matter of instilling the confidence and trust in him to bring it out.
“Bijan’s always been aggressive, but he has a team mentality and he wants to get others involved,” WSU head coach Paul Mills said. “The thing we’ve talked with him about is: You’re doing what’s best for the team when you think ‘shot.’ An aggressive Bijan is the best Bijan.”
But in order to extract the best version of himself, Cortes had to remain confident. And that’s been the lasting issue for him during his career, whether it was his first two years at Oklahoma or his final two seasons with the Shockers.
Cleveland, a former point guard himself for Arkansas, knows the importance of confidence for the player running the show.
“You have to have a short-term memory,” Cleveland said. “We talk a lot with him about making the next right play. When you play for a coach like Mills, he lets you play through your mistakes, as long as you can do that self-evaluation as a basketball player and move on to the next play. And right now, Bijan is doing that and good things are happening.”
It wasn’t long ago when a turnover early in a game could derail Cortes’ confidence for the rest of the contest. There were times this season when Mills effectively benched him because he allowed the mental side of the game to beat him.
Cortes admits he used to allow social media to get to him. He would see the online criticism and take it to heart. Lately though, Cortes has shut out the outside noise.
And as a result, he is making the next right play more often than he ever has in his career.
“A big thing I try not to do is listen to what other people have to say,” Cortes said. “That’s kind of big, especially in this world of social media. And then everyone on the team, my teammates, the staff, they all just help boost me up and help me stay confident.”
Cortes gives credit to Mills and each of the assistant coaches, but also singled out graduate assistant Andrew Muse, who has sacrificed countless hours of his time over the last two seasons to help Cortes.
Whether it’s coming to Koch Arena outside of practice to help Cortes work on his shot or putting him through a workout or sitting down and watching film with him, Muse has been a constant pillar of support.
It has been a gratifying process for both to see their hard work pay off.
“It’s the fruit of the hard work that he puts in,” Muse said. “We just try to be vessels to fill him with positivity and to encourage him and put him in the best position to make plays and play winning basketball. We just try to put the confidence in him to stay aggressive because he can play at this high level, he just needs to be aggressive and do his thing out there.”
While building a foundation of confidence behind the scenes is important, it’s vital for Cortes to retain that confidence during games when something inevitably goes wrong.
Cleveland gave credit to the culture Mills has created in his second year at WSU for Cortes’ growth.
“Part of it is Bijan’s maturation, but another part of it is how much his teammates are there to pick him up,” Cleveland said. “When everyone is encouraging you like that, you don’t have a choice but to bounce back. That’s the kind of team we have this year. That’s why you see us high-fiving so much on the bench. No one is going to let you stay down.”
In the last month alone, Cortes has raised his career-high scoring mark three different times. He hit a critical 3-pointer in overtime to help the Shockers take down a nationally ranked Memphis squad, then hit a clutch floater down the stretch of a road win at Rice to help WSU escape.
On Thursday, Cortes showed no hesitation dribbling into jumpers and floaters or pulling up from deep. In the past, he was so reluctant to shoot that Mills would have to plead with him to look to score because it was hurting the team’s offense. Against South Florida, however, Cortes threaded the needle of looking to score (eight field goals) and looking to pass (seven assists) flawlessly.
“I just have to read the defense and know when to look for my opportunities to shoot,” Cortes said. “I know I can still get back to that because that’s what I used to do. It’s all about just having a good feel for the game.”
While the recent scoring binges may be new to Shocker fans, Cortes wasn’t exaggerating when he said he was once accustomed to playing that way.
Cortes used to be the guy for Kingfisher, where he was a star high school prospect in Oklahoma and powered the team to a 107-4 record during his career and a pair of state championships.
And when the Kingfisher version of Cortes comes out, his team almost never loses. The trend continued on Thursday.
“Since coach Mills recruited me here, it’s been all about stacking days and I’ve started to catch on to that,” Cortes said. “I feel like that’s been really important for me, and the staff and my teammates have really helped me get back to that, whether things were going good or bad. They always say to be ready for when it’s your time and I’m glad I’ve been ready.”
This story was originally published March 13, 2025 at 5:12 PM.
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