Now or Never

Isaac Brown loves the passion that James Rojas brings to the Wichita State basketball team, and the Shockers coach thinks he knows where it comes from. “You know, this is his last year as a college athlete,” Brown said of Rojas, a 6-foot-6 forward.

After an All-American career at Hutchinson Community College, Rojas spent three injury-marred seasons at Alabama before transferring to WSU as a sixth-year senior.

“He’s a guy that’s willing to do everything he can to win a basketball game,” Brown said. “A guy that’s willing to play through injuries. He’s had a couple games where he sprained his wrist. He turned his ankle, I think, in the South Florida game. It was purple and black, and he still went out there on the floor and was able to play.”

Or as Rojas said: “Any time I get to be on the court, man, it’s a blessing.”

Not that Rojas’ last year as a college athlete has been bump-free. Through mid-February the Shockers had played well against some good teams (Missouri, Kansas State, Houston) but came up short, showed a propensity to blow leads (against those three teams plus Tulane, East Carolina and Central Florida) and compiled a somewhat shocking 2–5 home record against American Athletic Conference opponents. 

Despite that, Brown and players believe the example set by Rojas and other seniors is having a positive effect, one that hopefully will lead to wins in March.

Craig Porter Jr., another senior, has enjoyed a much different college experience than Rojas. After helping lead Vincennes to a national junior college championship, he’s spent three years developing into the kind of do-everything point guard WSU is known for producing. This year, Porter was leading the team in every important statistical category — assists, rebounding, steals, blocks (at 6-foot-2) and minutes played — except scoring, where he stood at second.

The one thing Porter hasn’t experienced yet as a starter is the same level of winning as his predecessors. Porter said the team simply hasn’t played at its best on a consistent enough basis. “Something we still need to work on is just putting a full game together,” he said. “We still, at times, have lapses where we don’t score, or we’ll have a three- or four-minute dry spell where we don’t get any baskets and let our defense slip because of that. So, if we cut that out, we’ll be good.”

“Jaykwon Walton’s a tough match-up because he’s so athletic and versatile … He’s one of the best players in the AAC right now.” — Isaac Brown, head coach

Of course, identifying the problem and correcting it are two different things. The day after Porter made his comment, the Shockers squandered two second-half leads and fell at home to Central Florida, which had lost five straight. Porter led the Shockers with 19 points and seven assists, but WSU turned the ball over on six of 10 possessions at one point.

The Shockers narrowly avoided a repeat in their next game, rallying to win a double-overtime game at home over SMU, thanks to sophomore big man Kenny Pohto’s career-high 28 points and another superlative overall game (22 points, six assists, three blocks) from Porter. The game drove home the point that the Shockers need Porter, who played all but three of the game’s 50 minutes, on the court at nearly all times for a chance to win.

With conference games still remaining against the AAC’s top four teams at that point, the Shockers’ hopes of finishing the season above .500 seemed slim. Brown’s biggest challenge has been incorporating 11 new players into the team, even though a majority of them were transfers like Rojas who’d played for other Division 1 schools. A 57–66 home loss to Alcorn State in the second regular season game signaled struggles to come.

Brown, now in his third year as head coach, said he’s seen “night and day” improvement on the offensive end thanks to more involvement by big men Rojas and Pohto, who’s second on the team in assists.

The Shockers were held to less than 70 points in 10 of their first 15 games. Stingy defense still allowed them to win seven and keep most of the others close. Starting with a Jan. 8 win over South Florida, WSU scored 70 or more points in eight of 10 games. 

“I do feel like we’re playing inside-out more,” Brown said. “The ball is going inside to Kenny Pohto and James Rojas and those two big guys are really making the game easy for the other players on the team. Getting them wide-open, stationary threes. When they get doubled, those guys cut to the basket for layups. It’s allowing us to get in the bonus early, so we’ve got to continue to do that in order to win games.”

Leading scorer Jaykwon Walton, a 6-foot-7 transfer guard from Georgia, has been named to the conference honor roll after several big games this year and poured in 24 points during the Feb. 2 loss to No. 3 Houston. “He’s a tough match-up because he’s so athletic and versatile,” Brown said. “He can finish with both hands. And now he’s making those stationary threes again. He’s rebounding. He’s one of the best players in the AAC right now.”

The Shockers are also earning more “easy” baskets garnered by pushing the tempo. Brown compared Rojas to former Shocker rebounding machine Rashard Kelly (2014–18) in his ability to collect defensive boards and start fast breaks.

The Houston loss was in some ways a microcosm of the Shockers’ season, at least to that point. WSU led for two-thirds of the game. Rojas recorded a double-double but said what he’ll remember is “our crowd against Houston. That was the biggest our section’s been this season. It was a big time. They were great for us.”