How trust from teammates fueled Kenyon Giles and Wichita State’s comeback win
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- Teammate trust propelled Kenyon Giles to keep firing and spark WSU’s comeback.
- Giles scored 26 points with eight 3s, shouldering offense through a 16-point deficit.
- Wichita State rallied to a 75-70 win, opening AAC play 1-0.
Confidence doesn’t always come from seeing the ball go in.
For Kenyon Giles, it came from the voices around him — the ones telling him to keep shooting even after the misses, even on the road, even when Wichita State looked completely out of sync.
That trust carried the senior guard through a career game Wednesday at Bartow Arena, where Giles matched his career high with 26 points and drilled a career-best eight 3s to lift the Shockers to a 75-70 comeback win over UAB.
WSU (9-5) erased a 16-point deficit and opened American Conference play 1-0 for the first time in four seasons, largely thanks to the timely shot-making of the 5-foot-10 guard.
“My teammates just kept finding me on everything,” Giles said. “Even when I wasn’t hitting shots, I even air-balled one, they were in my ear, ‘Next one is going in, KG. Next one is going in.’ So I really give it to my teammates and my coaches for really believing in me.”
For long stretches of the first half, the game tilted sharply against WSU. The offense sputtered, the defense fractured and the Shockers trailed by 13 at halftime. The only thing keeping WSU in the game was Giles’ willingness to keep firing, even after an uncharacteristic air ball on an open 3 from the wing.
What never quieted was WSU’s bench. That belief mattered more to Giles than the makes.
“It’s not really about the crowd on the road,” Giles said. “To me, I love every one of those guys that got on the plane with us and came here to UAB. I love those guys. The crowd doesn’t really matter to me. We’re away, but when I’m with my guys, it feels like every game is a home game to me.”
The confidence was evident early. Giles didn’t force shots or hunt heat checks. He spaced the floor, relocated and trusted his teammates to find him. More often than not, it was point guard Dre Kindell firing the pass that led to a Giles triple.
“You could tell early,” coach Paul Mills said. “The ball was looking really clean coming out of his hands.”
By halftime, Giles had already hit four 3s, not enough to prevent a double-digit deficit, but enough to keep WSU within striking distance. And when the Shockers finally found traction after the break, the same confidence that carried Giles through the misses carried him through the biggest shots of the night.
With WSU trailing 56-51 midway through the second half, Giles drilled a corner 3 to slice into the margin. Seconds later, he snaked a pick-and-roll with Will Berg and finished at the rim to tie the game with 8:19 remaining. When UAB answered with another surge to go up 64-60, Giles responded again — curling off a Berg screen and burying another deep 3 to pull the Shockers within in.
Time and again, WSU needed a basket. Time and again, Giles delivered. In total, 23 of his 26 points came while the Shockers were trailing, each one serving as a stabilizer in a game that threatened to slip away.
It was only fitting that the night ended with the ball in his hands.
Clinging to a 70-69 lead with the clock ticking under 30 seconds, Giles once more used a screen from Berg to get separation. UAB center Daniel Rivera had his heels planted near the 3-point arc, enough to deter most shooters, but not Giles. As soon as he turned the corner and saw the big man retreat a step, he rose from several feet beyond the line and fired.
The contest came late. The result didn’t.
As the shot splashed through the net to push WSU ahead by four with 28 seconds left, the Shockers’ bench erupted. Assistant coach P.J. Couisnard, who hit his fair share of big shots during his WSU playing career, punctuated the moment with a Steph Curry “night night” celebration, signaling that Giles had just put the game to bed.
“When a kid hits six or seven, if he gets another one off, man, shame on you,” UAB coach Andy Kennedy said. “It’s just lack of awareness and a lack of awareness is a reflection of your coach. I’ve got to get them more aware.”
Giles finished having played all 40 minutes, the first time h has done so in his career, and still had the legs to pull from distance late. Mills shrugged off the workload, noting WSU was coming off a 10-day break.
To the coach, it was more about Giles’ fearlessness in the big moments.
“He wants to take big shots and that’s 90% of the battle,” Mills said. “You have to want to be in that environment and want to do those things.”
For Giles, the desire never wavered because the trust never did.
“I just want to make the right play for my team,” Giles said. “At the end, my teammates just gave me the confidence and I wanted to make the right play for them because they trust me with the ball. So that felt really good to be able to do that for my guys.”
For the season, Giles is now averaging 17.4 points and shooting 42.7% on 3s with 47 triples already banked — a pace that puts Colby Rogers’ program record of 99 in range if he stays healthy. His eight 3s on Wednesday were tied for second-most in a game by a Shocker, one behind Jason Perez’s program record of nine in 2000 and tied with Joe Ragland (2011) and Maurice Evans (1998).
But on Wednesday, the numbers told only part of the story. What mattered most was belief and the confidence to keep shooting until the comeback was complete.
“That’s a really good team win,” Giles said. “But now it’s already onto the next. We have to get back home and rest and recover and get ready for a really good Charlotte team on Saturday.”
This story was originally published December 31, 2025 at 7:37 PM.
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