Yahoo Finance How Craig Porter helped Wichita State basketball to win at Missouri without scoring
Scoring the most points is how to win a basketball game, but there’s more to winning than simply points.
Wichita State point guard Craig Porter Jr. showed just about every other way to impact winning without scoring in the Shockers’ 61-55 road victory at Missouri on Friday night.
Porter missed all four of his shots and was the only player in the rotation not to score. Still, WSU (5-1) doesn’t beat Mizzou (3-2) for the first time in program history without the 6-foot-2 junior, who finished with seven rebounds, five assists and two blocks — all most on the team.
“We need somebody on our team willing to give the basketball up and make people around them better,” WSU coach Isaac Brown said. “(Porter) did a great job of creating help situations and getting other guys shots. In order for us to be a good basketball team, we’ve got to have a point guard willing to run the show and Craig did a great job of that tonight.”
Porter delivered his best floor general game of the season. He looked in command of the offense and was excellent at probing Missouri’s defense on ball screens, penetrating until the defense collapsed and finding his open teammates.
In the first 25 minutes of the game, Porter followed the advice his coaching staff had been begging its guards to yield — drive to kick! — and found the most valuable kind of assist, on a made three-pointer, three separate times when he drove to kick.
When Mizzou adjusted its defense to stop paying attention to WSU’s rolling big man and instead stay attached to shooters on the perimeter, Porter diagnosed the change, manipulated the defense by driving with the look to score to draw two defenders, then dumped off a slick pass to the rolling big man that gave Morris Udeze a pair of easy dunks.
“It’s great playing with good guards who make the right passes and give the big men easy points,” said Udeze, who scored 15 points to break out of his early-season slump.
A combination of COVID-19 protocol and nagging injuries robbed Porter of his explosion last season, making him a shell of the player he knew he could be.
In his second season with the Shockers, Porter has his bounce back and is looking more and more like the highly prized recruit who led Vincennes to a junior college national championship in his freshman season.
He earned a reputation as a defensive force and showed flashes of returning to that form on Friday with a pair of thrilling chase-down blocks. Porter added a third in an exhibit of his shut-down potential in the half-court, as he went stride-for-stride with Mizzou’s Boogie Coleman, cut off his path to the basket, didn’t bite on the pump fake, then smothered the shot. It was a page straight out of Dexter Dennis’ book of elite defending.
“It just feels good to be able to show my athleticism and help my team any way I can,” Porter said. “I haven’t been hitting my shots, so I just try to use my athleticism in other ways.”
Usually you think of jaw-dropping dunks when discussing a player’s athleticism. For Porter, his athleticism has been showcased in other areas, like soaring above crowds to wrestle away a rebound or chasing down a block from behind.
Through six games, Porter has 10 offensive rebounds and six blocks with some of the best per-minute rates in those categories for a point guard in the country.
“You see CP flying around, blocking shots on the break and grabbing big-time rebounds,” Dennis said. “He’s doing a lot for us right now. He’s been doing a great job of running the show for us.”
The rebounding boost (Porter is averaging nearly five per game) has been the most important one for a WSU team that ranked as one of the worst defensive rebounding teams in the country last season without Porter’s explosion at guard.
To have a 6-foot-2 point guard be able to come in and snatch a rebound above the rim is a valuable asset. It’s not a coincidence WSU is now grabbing better than 73% of available defensive rebounds, an above-average rate in the country.
“It’s big time because we talk about our guards checking down and helping us rebound,” Brown said. “We’re not the biggest team in the country, so we’ve got to do a good job on the defensive glass.”
WSU’s two starting guards did exactly that against Missouri, as Porter and Tyson Etienne combined for 11 defensive rebounds.
“Craig is a mastermind at rebounding the basketball on both offense and defense,” Etienne said. “It’s so valuable to have that kind of presence rebounding the basketball at point guard. And it’s even better for us because we don’t have to wait for an outlet pass. He gets it and we can go.”
It’s the same formula that Gregg Marshall used to turn WSU into an elite rebounding team. The bigs focused on the dirty work, boxing out and sealing the opponent each time, then the guards swooping in to secure the rebound and finish the defensive possession.
“I know I would love to grab all of the rebounds, but I know it’s my job to check out huge dudes,” Udeze said. “I don’t care who gets it, as long as we get the rebound and start the break. We’ve been knowing that CP had this kind of bounce, but he couldn’t showcase it last season.”
Porter, who is averaging 4.0 points, knows he can help his team in scoring more than he has so far this season.
But he’s more concerned about winning and if that means doing other things, like rebounding, then he’s all for it.
“It just helps relieve a lot of pressure on our big guys,” Porter said. “We’re an undersized team, so I’m trying to do anything I can to help us get the rebound.
“I’m going to show off the hops on a dunk one of these days, but grabbing rebounds is one of my keys and it’s good to help the team out. I think it’s only going to get better as the year goes along.”
