Nutter Center | Photograph by Soham Parikh | The Wright State Guardian
Wright State Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams have both been predicted to steal the league titles this season.
After a successful season last year for both teams, both Men’s Basketball Head Coach Scott Nagy and Women’s Basketball Head Coach Katrina Merriweather are hopeful for the upcoming season.
This year is the first year in program history that the women’s team has been picked first in preseason polls.
“It came as a surprise to me and I’ll tell you one of our votes was not me,” said Merriweather.
After losing three starters, Merriweather expected people to think it would be a rebuilding year. Nonetheless, she is excited about the expectation to be at the top of the league.
“I think that means that we’ve earned some respect from our colleagues and from the conference and it’s a lot to live up to,” said Merriweather. “But we’re just gonna concentrate on getting better one day at a time and not really worrying about it.
According to Merriweather, Michal Miller, Angel Baker and Tyler Fierson were big contributors last year and bring a lot of potential to the court.
Merriweather is excited to see how all the pieces will play out this year.
While Merriweather was surprised, Nagy expected the results. With such an experienced team, he knew they were at the top.
“It doesn’t feel any different than anything else, we knew coming in the expectations we had,” said Nagy.
The men’s team was picked to win the league last year as well, but Nagy thinks with a year of experience, the team is better prepared now to handle the target on their backs.
“You wanna get your team to the point where they’re just used to that [the target on their backs],” said Nagy. “They expect to get everyone’s best. They like being the best.”
The men’s team has some returning players who will shine on the court this year: Bill Wompler, Cole Gentry and Loudon Love are the players to watch. There are also several freshman who will likely see substantial playing time, including Grant Basile.
“We thought that because we’re so experienced, our freshman wouldn’t have a chance to play much, and that’s not going to be the case,” said Nagy.
Some believe that a first place prediction adds a lot of pressure to the teams but neither head coach feels that this is the case.
“Really these polls that come out beforehand don’t mean anything, everybody knows it,” said Nagy. “It just gives people something to talk about.”
When it comes down to the actual season, the only thing that really matters is how the teams play.
“We don’t consider it pressure because we know that it is still going to start out 0-0 for everyone,” said Merriweather. “It doesn’t give you any specific advantage, in fact it just makes everyone who plays against you want to beat you that much more.”
Merriweather, instead of seeing the prediction as pressure, says it has given her team more focus and a different mentality.
“There’s always expectations and if people expect you to be bad, there’s pressure that goes with that too,” said Nagy. “So I would rather have the pressure of people expecting us to be good.”
According to the official site of Wright State Raider Athletics, wsuraiders.com, the men’s first game is against Central State on Nov. 5 and the women’s first game is against Kentucky State on Nov. 6, both at home.
