‘Redemption time’: How Isaac Brown restored MTXE to Wichita State basketball

By now, Isaac Brown is used to the pressure.

The pressure he feels to maintain the high standard of Wichita State men’s basketball. The pressure he puts on himself to live up to the $6 million contract he earned in 2021. The pressure to avoid another embarrassing misstep like the nine-point loss to Alcorn State at Koch Arena last week.

The 53-year-old has become so accustomed to the pressure as a first-time head coach at a major program that he internalizes a lot of what he feels. Sometimes that makes his outside demeanor come across as stoic, but those inside the program say no one is more fiery than Brown during practices.

The outside world was given a rare glimpse of that raw passion from Brown in the locker-room clip Wichita State posted on its social media accounts following the Shockers’ 56-53 road win at Richmond on Thursday.

“That’s (expletive) Shocker basketball,” Brown yelled, as the players around him erupted in celebration.

The pent-up emotion came spilling out of Brown, who animatedly led the “Are we moving up?” victory chant in the locker room to celebrate Wichita State’s eighth straight nonconference road win. The Shockers, in fact, own the nation’s second-highest road winning percentage, behind only Gonzaga, since 2010.

“The emotion you saw in our locker room video is what he brings every day in practice,” a member of the program told The Eagle. “He’s giving this program everything he’s got.”

It was an emotional victory for the Shockers, but especially for Brown because he had poured himself into the preparation, pulled all the right strings for motivation, then coached what some in the program consider one of his finest games as a head coach to secure a much-needed road win.

“There are a lot of tough decisions a head coach has to make, but coach Brown made all of the right ones tonight, I can tell you that,” said veteran WSU assistant coach Butch Pierre.

“IB was on his A-game tonight, 100 percent,” added WSU assistant Tyson Waterman, who has coached with Brown the longest.

Here’s a look at the different things Brown did, before and during the game, that spurred the 180-degree change in effort from Wichita State in Richmond.

Wichita State basketball focuses on returning to MTXE roots

A coach can yell at his players until he is blue in the face, but sometimes change won’t occur unless the player wants it just as much as the coach.

Brown could have berated his players in the film room for their effort against Alcorn State. Some of that did happen, but the head coach instead appealed to his players to take pride in the program.

“Losing that game last week was not acceptable. That effort was not acceptable. That wasn’t the Shocker effort,” Brown said. “So I told them this week about the history here, about mental toughness, extra effort.”

Brown lectured his players about the importance of “MTXE,” the motto of the best WSU basketball teams of the late 1970s and 1980s, and how it is ingrained in the culture of the program. But the coach didn’t stop there.

He invited Shocker basketball legend Cheese Johnson, who played for WSU during the MTXE era, to speak to the players.

“I just ran down the history of what it means to play at Wichita State and all of the great players that have come through here,” Johnson said. “Fred VanVleet, Ron Baker, Xavier (McDaniel), Antoine (Carr), Cliff (Levingston), myself. I told them, ‘There’s some great tradition here and you guys have to follow it, even though you guys are new to it.’

“Coach (Gene) Smithson used to tell us we’re entertainers, so we have to give our best effort in every game, every second that you wear the Wichita State jersey. Sports is just like life: Whatever you put into it is what you’re going to get out of it.”

After WSU star guard Craig Porter was injured early in the second half of Thursday’s game, he told The Eagle he was inspired to return by the stories of MTXE he had heard throughout the week leading up to the game.

“The coaching staff has been preaching to us MTXE all week,” Porter said. “It’s all about giving that extra effort and giving up your body for your teammates. No man is above the group. We wanted to show that we believe in what Wichita State is all about.”

A change in mentality in practice helps the Shockers

After an entire week of poor practice ended with the stunning loss to Alcorn State, the players responded with much more intensity in practice this week.

Effort was hammered home as the theme of the week.

“We challenged them mentally,” WSU assistant coach Tyson Waterman said. “We told them the things you can control are your energy and your effort. That’s a must when you’re playing for the Shockers. They weren’t mentally tough (against Alcorn State). I know IB tried to take the blame because that’s who he is, but the reality is that our players had to accept the reality of the things they did and didn’t bring.”

Craig Porter, the elder statesmen of the team, confirmed there was a night-and-day difference between the way the team practiced this week compared to last.

“We all know we underestimated our opponent last week and I feel like everybody changed their whole demeanor to how they approach everything,” Porter said. “We were so locked in all week. I haven’t seen it like that since the summer. It was amazing and I’m so proud of the way these guys came together.”

James Rojas, a fifth-year senior, also noticed a difference in mindset from WSU.

“After that loss, everybody knew coming into this game it was redemption time,” Rojas said.

The decisions Isaac Brown made to lead WSU to victory

Following the Alcorn State loss, Brown knew he would have to tinker with his rotation and starting lineup before the next game.

Brown said the changes would reflect how players had practiced in the three practices leading up to Thursday’s game. Those changes proved to be drastic.

Through two games, WSU’s bench was playing 40% of the minutes, which ranked No. 23 in the country, and averaging 30.7 points. At Richmond, Brown shortened the rotation and played four starters at least 31 minutes, as the bench played just 17% of the minutes and totaled six points.

James Rojas (15 points, six rebounds) and Jaron Pierre (four points, five rebounds) were promoted to the starting lineup, and each delivered crucial plays to the Shockers down the stretch to help secure the victory. Meanwhile, Xavier Bell and Gus Okafor, the previous starters, combined for just 10 minutes.

It’s unclear if Brown plans to lean that heavily on his starting unit from here on out, although he does have a track record of success with that model, having won the American Athletic Conference championship in 2021 primarily with his starters.

But Brown’s best coaching call against Richmond was fluctuating WSU’s defense constantly throughout the game, which Richmond coach Chris Mooney admitted flustered his team.

According to Synergy, WSU played zone defense on just 7.2% of half-court possessions last season. In Thursday’s game, Synergy logged 29 zone possessions played by WSU — essentially half of the half-court possessions in the game — with the Spiders scoring just 0.72 points per possession against the zone.

“We were a little bit surprised by the zone at the beginning of the game,” said Mooney, whose team shot nothing but three-pointers for the first nine minutes of the game. “We were trying to read what we were seeing rather than just playing.”

WSU opened the game in its man defense but then switched to a three-quarters-court zone press that fell back into a shape-shifting 2-3 zone, with the goal of taking away passes to the middle of the court.

Richmond wasn’t used to facing a zone — the Spiders had played against a zone on only 11% of half-court possessions, per Synergy, in their first three games — and the Shockers exploited that inexperience. On the first possession against the zone, Richmond committed a shot clock violation.

“That was a decision made by our staff coming into the game,” Brown said of the changing defenses. “When you play a team that runs that Princeton-style offense, you don’t want to get beat giving up layups. If they’re going to beat you, you want to make them beat you from the three-point line.”

The strategy worked to perfection: Richmond was left chucking from the outside and connected on just 27.6% of its three-pointers, while WSU held the Spiders to seven free throws and 12 two-point field goals.

The bold call to play Craig Porter with four fouls

Nothing was going the Shockers’ way in the second half.

Craig Porter was injured 30 seconds after halftime and had to leave the game, only to return and pick up his fourth foul with 12:46 remaining.

Momentum had completely swung in Richmond’s favor and with Porter on the bench, the Spiders had Robins Center in near pandemonium on the heels of a 16-2 run to erase WSU’s nine-point halftime advantage and take a 45-39 lead.

Some coaches, maybe even a majority of them, would have protected their star player with four fouls until later in the game. Brown showed no hesitation to insert Porter in the game with 10:17 remaining in an attempt to steady the Shockers.

“It wasn’t a tough call for me,” Brown said. “I watch a lot of college basketball and I see guys all the time play with four fouls. I just felt like if we were going to win this game tonight, Craig Porter had to be on the floor for us. I didn’t want to lose the game with our best player on the bench. He’s the captain of our team. He runs the show and he did a great job in there keeping those guys together.”

Watching the score go in the wrong direction from the bench, Porter of course wanted to play. But he also knew players with four fouls rarely go in before the final five minutes of a game.

“Coach knew having me out on the court, my presence alone would help the guys and give us confidence,” Porter said. “Putting me back out there with four fouls gave us confidence and let us put that game away.”

Brown knew he could trust Porter on the offensive end with his decision-making and made sure WSU played zone with Porter on the floor, so he could protect his star player on the defensive end as much as possible.

The decision to trust Porter proved prescient, as the star guard never committed his fifth foul, played all but 40 seconds of the final 10 minutes and scored three crucial baskets and assisted on another during the 12-2 run WSU used to essentially win the game.

“The call IB made to put Craig back in with 10 minutes left was a gutsy call, but it was the right one, no doubt about it,” Waterman said.