Boise State exposed a weakness. Wichita State’s fix might surprise you
Not every team can pull off what Boise State did on Tuesday night, but the blueprint is out there now.
In the Broncos’ 62-59 win at ExtraMile Arena, they showed how a defense with discipline, length and quickness on the perimeter can distort Wichita State’s offense by smothering senior guard Kenyon Giles.
Boise State didn’t shut Giles down — he still scored an efficient 15 points — but it did manage to disrupt the rhythm of the Shockers, who went from pouring in 200 points their previous two games to sputtering to 0.94 points per possession in their first road test.
For Wichita State, it was a glimpse of the kind of defensive attention elite opponents will throw at the 5-foot-10 star shooter as the season progresses. And that will require the Shockers evolving, not by running Giles off more screens, but by using him as one.
“The great thing about having a player like that is it’s going to open up the court,” Mills said. “On the count of his gravity, the spacing is going to be a lot better. I think we can learn from it. We’ve got to utilize him more as a screener to be able to get other people open, knowing that they’re probably not going to leave him.”
Why a 5-foot-10 screener can work for Wichita State
It might sound counterintuitive to use the smallest player on the court as a screener. But the key is not the size of the screener, it’s exploiting the attention he demands.
Boise State freshman Aginaldo Neto hounded Giles tirelessly, fighting over every screen and refusing to give him space. He top-locked him (fronting Giles in an attempt to prevent him to come off screens) away from the ball and relied on long help defenders behind the action.
But the moment Giles sets a screen himself, the calculus changes. The defender glued to him — determined not to give up a 3 — cannot switch or help. That defender becomes a non-factor, meaning if Giles sets an effective screen, WSU should be able to find an open teammate in space.
“We’re going to see teams do this where they just face front and try to take KG out,” Mills said. “We’ve got to put more in our packages in order to make sure we can counter what the other team is doing. What we did have in, we weren’t able to execute.”
Good defensive teams, like Boise State, can take away a first option. What they can’t take away is the attention they must dedicate to Giles, a level of attention that will free up teammates if WSU uses it correctly.
The Shockers have already sprinkled in some effective looks with Giles as a screener. In one action, he sets a back screen on the block for Will Berg, giving the 7-foot-2 center inside leverage for a clean post catch. There’s also a baseline-out-of-bounds wrinkle that mirrors the concept, with Giles sprinting to the corner to set a rip screen and spring the center toward the rim for a possible lob.
How Boise State defended the Shockers
To be clear, WSU’s struggles weren’t entirely scheme. The Shockers missed eight high-quality finishes around the rim, an uncharacteristic lapse that easily could have swung the game.
But Boise State’s game plan prepared by Leon Rice deserves credit. The Broncos wanted to suffocate shooters like Giles and Mike Gray Jr. along the perimeter, then help aggressively off perceived non-shooters.
“A big emphasis was to know personnel,” Boise State’s Andrew Meadow said. “Some guys didn’t want to shoot, so we’ve got to be overhelpers and be able to get in front of the ball… We were trying to impact the ball and make sure they couldn’t get the 3 off.”
It worked well enough to throw WSU out of sync. But there were flashes of what Mills wants the offense to become.
The best example came when Giles set a back screen for Berg, freeing the big man to dive to the rim for a potential lob. The pass wasn’t there, but the play flowed freely into a dribble hand-off to Giles, who immediately set up a two-man game with T.J. Williams. When Boise State sent two to the ball, Giles slipped a pocket pass to a rolling Williams. Giles had to rescue the play when it stalled out, but the concept was clean and repeatable.
“They did a good job of scouting different things,” Gray said. “We’ve just got to be better at executing, though. We’ve got to be more focused next time.”
How a former Paul Mills star can help a current one
For Mills, he has experience when it comes to using the gravity of elite shooters to help the team.
At Oral Roberts, he routinely weaponized star guard Max Abmas, similarly undersized and similarly feared as a shooter, as a screener. One of Mills’ favorite pet plays was to funnel the ball into the corner before Abmas set a back screen for the center, who would dive for an alley-oop. Defenses rarely helped off Abmas, so the screen almost always landed cleanly.
Another wrinkle worked against Duke in the NCAA Tournament: Abmas passed up top, faked an UCLA cut, then spun and set a back screen for the power forward. Duke stayed attached to Abmas and the ORU cutter scored an easy basket.
Those actions translate neatly to Wichita State.
It’s not hard to imagine Berg initiating from the top, Giles flashes like he’s cutting through, then turns and plants a screen to unlock a free runway for Williams or Karon Boyd to the rim.
The loss at Boise State did not expose a fatal flaw in WSU’s offense. It revealed the next step.
Elite defenses with length and physicality are sure to try to suffocate him again. But the moment Giles becomes a willing and active screener, those same defenses lose the ability to help, switch and recover cleanly.
Simple fixes for WSU that can have big payoffs
Not every counter needs to be a drawn-up back screen or a specialty set.
When a defender top-locks Giles in the corner and a teammate dribbles toward him looking to hand off the ball, Giles can execute a simple step-up screen to spring the ball-handler free. He had a chance at this early in the second half in Boise, but didn’t land the screen cleanly and failed to create an advantage. WSU ended up turning the ball over on the possession.
That’s an easy detail that can be corrected. Afterward, Giles vowed to embrace the challenge head-on.
“I understand that defenses are going to be trying not to give me no easy shots,” he said. “They were on me tight, which is fine. This is my fourth year of going through that. They did a good job, but we’re going to go back in the gym, watch the film and figure it out. Because we’re going to see that kind of defense on me throughout the year.”
Even with a defender draped on him all night, Giles still managed to score 15 points on 11 shots. He’s a crafty veteran in the art of off-ball separation, slipping free just long enough to catch and fire, drilling multiple jumpers even when Boise State fully expected the action.
He’s such a tenacious, natural scorer that he can still produce against virtually any coverage. But for Wichita State’s offense to reach another tier, he knows his shooting gravity has to become a tool to open the floor for others, not just himself.
“There’s no such thing as a good defensive coverage,” Giles said. “We’re going to have the counter for it next time. I want to go back in the gym right now and figure it out.”
This story was originally published November 20, 2025 at 6:03 AM.
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