COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Saturday’s nonconference finale for Wright State could hardly be considered a tune-up for Horizon League play; it was a Mack Truck hitting a cement wall.
The Raiders needed more than a few spark plugs as they were no match for No. 21-ranked Ohio State as the Buckeyes won their final nonconference game of the season 100-55. The Raiders’ loss was their most lopsided defeat in the program’s Division I history.
Despite the result, Wright State head coach Billy Donlon was glad to play the game that drew a number of Wright State fans.
“I love playing this game even though you get beat the way we did,” Donlon said. “But it will make us better moving forward for our league.”
Wright State allowed 100 points for the first time under Donlon. The last time the Raiders gave up triple digits was on Dec. 22, 2003 versus Toledo.
Coming off Wright State’s 68-60 home loss Tuesday to George Mason, Donlon said he knew his squad was not in a good place. The Buckeyes exposed the Raiders who finished the nonconference portion of the schedule with an 8-6 record.
“We weren’t in a good place before Mason, we weren’t in a good place during Mason, we weren’t in a good place after the Mason game,” Donlon said. “What you hope for is that when you’re not in a good place, your next game isn’t against Ohio State. But it was.”
Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell was a perfect 6-for-6 from beyond the arc and led the Buckeyes with 24 points. Wright State was led by freshman Grant Benzinger who made four 3 pointers and scored 12.
The contest was ugly from the get go as the Buckeyes scored the first 10 points of the game. OSU went down low to Amir Williams who dominated JT Yoho down low. After Williams’ layups, OSU made back-to-back 3s, which prompted Donlon to call his first timeout.
“I thought our half court defense was okay, and I told them that, ‘Your body language is like a junior high guy when he misses a shot,’” Donlon said about the conversation at the first timeout. “I have to do something to get our guys to play more confidence.”
Though WSU trailed by double digits for most of the game, Benzinger was optimistic the Raiders were not out of the contest.
“We kept competing the way we did and you have to give them credit, they are a great team,” Benzinger said. “It was definitely frustrating but you have to give them credit, they took it to us right away. We couldn’t really recover.”
Donlon opted to start a smaller lineup to send a message to his team. The message was not delivered.
“To start the game, I didn’t start as small as we did because I thought it was in the best interest to beat Ohio State, I started it to send a message to our team,” Donlon said.
The Buckeyes saw the Raiders were playing small and took advantage.
“We just came out of the gate and realized the man guardian me wasn’t as tall as I was,” Williams said. “D’Angelo saw the mismatch right away, and gave me a couple early post feeds, and we started to play off that.”
The Raiders inserted 6-foot-10 Michael Karena, but the Buckeyes continued to pound the Raiders. OSU finished the game shooting 11-of-20 from beyond the arc.
One positive for Wright State was it had its season high in offensive rebounds with 15, but that came off of 49 missed shots.
With the Raiders playing a young lineup, WSU got a good learning experienced on what it is like to play in front of large crowds.
“It was pretty awesome, you don’t really notice it during game, but after you recognize it and think, ‘Holy crap, I just played in front of 16,000 people,” Benzinger said.
While the experience was a unique one for the Raiders, they will not have to play in front of a crowd that large during the rest of conference play. That does not mean that Donlon will throw Saturday’s loss to the trash.
“We will go back to practice and review key aspects of what led to our downfall tonight,” Donlon said. “We had too many good looks that we didn’t take advantage of and you could see it in our body language that we just collapsed.”
The Raiders begin conference play next Friday versus Detroit.
NOTES: Wright State trailed 47-18 at halftime, which marked the fewest points WSU has scored in a half since Jan. 23, 2013 versus UIC… WSU forward Steven Davis left midway through the second half with an apparent lower-body injury. He did not return.
