Ten things you didn’t know from Wichita State basketball team’s win in season opener

Following a film study of the Wichita State men’s basketball team’s 79-55 win over Central Arkansas on Monday, The Eagle has 10 takeaways filled with analysis from the season-opening game.

1. The reinvention of James Rojas

WSU head coach Isaac Brown was confident Rojas would be a different player for the Shockers because he believed he would finally be healthy following an injury-ravaged career at Alabama that saw the 6-foot-6 big man tear the ACL in both of his knees.

Monday’s debut seems to prove Brown was right to take a chance on a player who averaged just 3.8 points and 2.5 rebounds for Alabama. Rojas finished with nine points, including a three-pointer, five rebounds and four assists (three added by The Eagle following a game tape review).

“He’s one of our best offensive players,” Brown said of Rojas. “He’s healthy this year and he’s been great all summer long. He can drive the basketball and he can stretch the defense with the way that he shoots the basketball, but the thing that he does best is when he drives and creates for teammates.”

The highlight of the game for Rojas came midway through the first half when he faked a dribble hand-off on the perimeter and left his defender clutching at air with a spin move that propelled him straight to the rim for an easy basket.

Rojas never showed that kind of off-the-dribble burst or creativity on the ball at Alabama, partly because of his health, but also because that wasn’t his role. Brown has empowered Rojas to become a playmaker, which has allowed him to showcase the slickest passes on the team outside of point guard Craig Porter.

Not bad for a player who finished with just 19 assists in 563 career minutes at Alabama.

“(Brown) tells me to take my guy all the time and make a play,” Rojas said. “That kind of confidence coming from a head coach is big time. I’m just continuing to develop and I’m going to keep working on it each and every day.”

2. IB shows what he can do on the clipboard

A switch-everything defense, like the one Central Arkansas employed, can present a challenging code to crack for an offense.

Future opponents might be more hesitant to switch their centers onto WSU star guard Craig Porter after head coach Isaac Brown showed off a new set that decimated UCA’s outmatched defense.

Last season WSU fell into the trap of running too much spread pick-and-roll offense, where the players not involved in the action just stood around, meaning their defenders never had to move and could focus entirely on the ball.

Brown introduced a new wrinkle on Monday to keep the help defense occupied and give more space for Porter to operate in the pick-and-roll game. This time Porter started the play by passing to the wing, who passed to the corner, who gave the ball immediately back to Porter. Think of it as window dressing: actions that don’t really matter but force defenders on the wing and in the corner to engage.

When Porter received the ball back up top, the help defense was distracted by the movement, which allowed center Quincy Ballard to set the ball screen and allow Porter to attack UCA’s center.

WSU ran the play three straight times and ended with points on all three, as Porter slotted a pass to a rolling Ballard to draw a foul, then dropped UCA’s center with a crossover and drilled a three and finished the flurry by once again punishing UCA’s center with a smooth drive and turnaround jumper for two points.

The message to future defenses was clear: Switch everything at your own peril. Porter was happy to oblige in attacking centers.

“I knew coming back this year that I was going to have to do two times more than what I did last year,” Porter said. “Coach having that confidence in me and my teammates giving me that confidence is big. That’s going to take me to another level.”

And just when UCA thought it had the play figured out, Brown sent the Bears for a loop following a timeout. He had WSU run the same actions, only this time Jaykwon Walton faked like he was coming up to receive the pass in the corner — as he had the three previous trips — only to backdoor cut for an easy basket on a pass supplied by Gus Okafor.

3. Does Wichita State have a rebounding problem?

The only box-score blemish for the Shockers from their 24-point season-opening victory was allowing an outmatched Central Arkansas squad grab 16 offensive rebounds and score 13 second-chance points.

WSU’s initial defense was stifling, holding UCA to 42 points on their first chance from 75 possessions (0.56 PPP). But the Shockers allowed 12 offensive rebounds and 10 second-chance points in the second half alone.

Perhaps the most memorable sequence from the second half of the blowout win was head coach Isaac Brown subbing off all five starters less than a minute after inserting them in the game following a sequence where they failed to secure the defensive rebound two straight times.

There were enough clips of WSU failing to box out or losing out on 50-50 balls to give Brown and the WSU coaching staff plenty of examples to show in the film room this week.

“I told those guys on the bench that we’re not giving up offensive rebounds,” Brown said. “It’s not about how many points you can score, it’s about playing the right way. That’s something we’ve got to clean up and I take (responsibility). That’s on me. We’ll get it cleaned up in our next practice. That’s something we’re going to emphasize every game: You’ve got to check out. We can’t allow the other team to have second and third shots.”

A decent chunk of the offensive rebounds surrendered were simply a result of 26 missed three-pointers by UCA, which created long rebounds that are difficult to corral. Three more can be discounted since they came in the final minute of a blowout game. WSU guard Craig Porter had another theory.

“In a (blowout) game like this, there’s guys who want to get that fast-break dunk, so we were leaking out a little bit (too much),” Porter said. “Coach emphasizes how important rebounding is and playing a full 40 minutes. We’ve got to lock in and do that and we’ll be in good shape.”

4. Walton relishes role as WSU’s new defensive stopper

Earning the comparison to Dexter Dennis, the AAC Defensive Player of the Year last season, tells you about the defensive potential of Jaykwon Walton, the 6-foot-7 bundle of energy and long limbs who made his Shocker debut on Monday.

“He reminds me so much of Dex,” said WSU guard Craig Porter, who played two seasons with Dennis. “The similarities are there. It’s about having the will and the heart and the want-to, and he’s got it all.”

Walton has the physical attributes and the desire, as Porter noted, to be the team’s defensive stopper on the perimeter.

Through the exhibition and Monday’s season opener, Walton has jumped the passing lane — like a ball-hawking safety swooping in for an interception in football — to steal a pass at the top of the key for an easy basket at the other end.

Walton has a long road ahead to reach the lofty standard left by Dennis, but the sophomore is using his predecessor’s accomplishment as a goal for himself.

“I want to go out there and guard the best player on the other team every night,” Walton said. “I’m trying to go for Defensive Player of the Year.”

5. Wichita State newcomers surpass impressive company in debut

A total of 10 players made their Shocker debut in Monday’s game, as the group of newcomers combined to score 54 points in a record-setting performance.

The total tops the previous record of 50 points set in the 1979 season-opener by a group of nine first-year Shockers that included Antoine Carr, Cliff Levingston and Randy Smithson. The mark was tied in the 2015 opener by newcomers that featured Landry Shamet, Markis McDuffie and Antoine Grady.

“The good basketball teams that I’ve always been around is not where one guy dominates on offense,” coach Isaac Brown said. “It’s not a guy scoring 20 points a game. I think that’s easy for the defense to defend when you only got one or two guys that are your only scorers. Our bench has a lot of scoring ability. You’re going to need your bench in college basketball to be successful and I thought our bench did an excellent job.”

All seven players who came off the bench for WSU in Monday’s game were newcomers, as they combined to score 38 points. The bench players also ended up playing 46.7% of the total minutes, which was the second-highest mark of any team in the country after the opening night of games, per KenPom.com.

WSU’s bench was buoyed by strong performances from Quincy Ballard (10 points), James Rojas (nine) and Jaron Pierre Jr. (six).

“We’ve got a pretty deep team,” starter Craig Porter said. “I feel like one through five, we’ve got somebody just as good as the person in front of them. I feel like that’s going to play a big part because the way we play, you’re going to get tired quick. Just having that backup that can come in and bring the same intensity and keep the flow of the game up, it’s really important to us.”

6. Less (threes) is more for the Shockers this season

Wichita State set the program record for three-point rate last season with 41% of its shots coming on three-pointers.

It didn’t make sense for a team that made just 31% of its outside shots to be among the top-100 in the country in taking them, so head coach Isaac Brown has vowed to have a better handle on the shot distribution for his team this season.

Brown believes WSU’s offensive efficiency can climb by exchanging some of those three-point attempts for two-point attempts near the basket. Through one game at least, the Shockers listened to their coach: WSU still didn’t shoot a great percentage on three-pointers (29%), but the team only took 21 total out of their 64 field-goal attempts for a 33% three-point rate.

Instead of chucking from the outside, WSU followed the scouting report and attacked a UCA defense lacking a rim protector to the tune of scoring 50 points (counting free throws) on shots at the rim.

“We talked about it before the game that we wanted to play inside-out,” Brown said. “The guys did a tremendous job of driving the basketball. I think in the first half we only took eight threes. That’s a low number for us and I was excited to see that.”

7. Wichita State shows progress in transition

There were times last season when a veteran WSU squad looked like rookies in transition, throwing the ball away and flubbing layups.

The Shockers won’t be confused for the Showtime Lakers, but they did put forth a promising effort in transition considering nine of 11 scholarship players who logged minutes were making their WSU debut.

By The Eagle’s count, WSU scored 28 points on 25 transition possessions, which equates to a good-not-great 1.12 points per chance.

WSU has room for improvement: Three sloppy passes went for turnovers and three more shots were forced. But after last year’s Shockers rated as one of the worst teams in transition, Monday was a step in the right direction — led by Craig Porter (nine points, two assists), Jaron Pierre Jr. (four points, one assist) and Jaykwon Walton (four points) in transition.

8. Shockers clamp down on defense

After an 11-0 run to start the game, WSU hit a lull and allowed Central Arkansas to stick around in the game, trailing 16-12, after seven minutes.

That’s when WSU delivered one of the most dominant defensive stretches in recent memory. The Shockers held UCA to just nine points in 24 possessions (0.38 points per possession) in the final 13 minutes of the first half.

WSU registered three straight defensive stops, known as a “kill” inside the program, a total of seven times in the first half and 10 for the game, which already exceeded the season-high mark from last season. In fact, the Shockers had one stretch where they produced a defensive stand without giving up points 14 times in a 15-possession span.

“Coach was telling us the whole game, ‘Defense, defense, defense,’” WSU’s Craig Porter said. “That’s what we’re trying to work on. Coming into this game, we wanted to work on us and not really worry about who the opponent was. We were focused and just locked in.”

Before giving up 10 points in a late flurry at the tail end of the comfortable win, WSU’s defense held UCA to 45 points in 68 possessions (0.66 PPP) before the starters were pulled. The Bears finished shooting 30.1% from the field and committed 14 turnovers.

9. A teaching moment for a young point guard

First-year point guard Shammah Scott still has a trick or two to learn before he can follow in the long line of WSU point guards to execute the program’s staple play call of “Jacksonville.”

The play relies on the point guard demonstrating the proper timing and pace to either pass or dribble the ball to the side of the floor at the exact moment a big man underneath is coming off of a back screen. When executed correctly, WSU almost always scores two points off the play.

Isaac Brown dialed up the play call for Scott midway through the second half, but the first run-through will have to serve as a lesson to learn from for the sophomore.

Scott was pressured bringing the ball up the floor, which sped up his tempo and affected the timing of the play. The point guard had already reached his destination well before the screen in the paint had occurred.

So when James Rojas, the intended target, broke free underneath the basket, Scott had dribbled too close and the timing was thrown too far off to make the play work.

It should be an easy fix in the film room and should give Scott a boost the next time he has the opportunity to execute the play in a game.

10. Taking care of business with the ball

One of the reasons why WSU won the AAC championship in the 2020-21 season was because of how well that team took care of the basketball and rarely turned it over.

In their title-defense season, the Shockers took a sizable slide backward in turnovers: falling from No. 29 in turnover rate (15.8%) in 2021 to No. 202 in the country (18.7%) in 2022.

WSU was credited with 10 turnovers in its 75 possessions (13.3% turnover rate, the 33rd-best mark from opening night) and a film review by The Eagle disagreed with three of those plays being tagged as a turnover.

Central Arkansas isn’t the type of defense to force its opponent into mistakes, but it was still a positive sign for the Shockers to have so few mistakes handling the ball in a game with so many possessions.