To win on the road at Evansville Tuesday, Wright State head coach Billy Donlon knew his squad would have to score a lot of points. With the exception of a seven-minute stretch in the second half, the Raiders were able to put up points.
But an 18-0 run over the course of seven minutes set back the Raiders who fell to 4-4 on the season after an 86-78 loss against the Purple Aces Tuesday night.
“I thought for 28 minutes, we played right with them offense for offense,” Dnlon said. “It was the kind of game where we were going to need to score. They are good offensively and we aren’t where we needed to be defensively. And then that seven minute stretch where it was 18-0, we lost our legs and got fatigued.”
Wright State finished its six-game road trip going 2-4 and return home Sunday versus Urbana after three weeks away from the Nutter Center. Tuesday’s game was the Raiders’ fourth in six days.
Evansville improved to 5-1 on the season.
Joe Thomasson led the Raiders with 20 points. He was followed by Steven Davis and Grant Benzinger who both scored 18. All three Raiders set their season highs.
“We played about as well as we could have offensively,” Donlon said. “We shot 51 percent, 38 percent from the 3.”
The Raiders’ defense struggled against Evansville and DJ Balentine who is one of the nation’s most prolific scorers. He had a game-high 28 points shooting 8-for-9 from the field.
“We had a hard time guarding him,” Donlon said. “We just couldn’t guard their motion. And the big difference was the first half, we had eight turnovers, they had four. They are starting the half with four more possessions than us.”
Before Evansville’s 18-0 run started with 15 minutes remaining in the game, the Raiders led by three. Rather than driving the lane, the Raiders opted to shoot four straight 3s. All four shots were off target. Meanwhile, the Purple Aces made 8-of-10 shots taking a 15-point lead.
The Aces went up by as many as 16 with under six minutes left.
The Raiders had a run left in them as a pair of Thomasson jumpers and a Davis jumper cut the lead in half with a quick 8-0 run.
The Raiders eventually cut the Aces’ lead down to four with 1:26 left. Evansville took 33 seconds off the shot clock before Davis bailed out Balentine and the Aces with a foul. Balentine drained both free throws to put the game away.
The contest was a back and forth affair for the first 25 minutes of the game. The Raiders trailed 39-36 at the half. There were 15 lead changes in the first 25 minutes of the game before the Purple Aces took control with 14:15 left. Once Evansville took the lead, it never looked back.
