Basketball | Photo by Diana Jaber | The Wright State Guardian
Ahead of the Weekend for both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams, It might be a good idea to look at how both teams will fare in their matchup, along with predictions on how the game will go.
With the Men’s recent 36-point win over Cleveland State and the Women’s side winning their last 7 Horizon League games, as well as their last two being against Robert Morris, it’s hard to look at this upcoming weekend with anything other than a 4-0 prediction for the Raiders.
Because of IUPUI’s recent double wins over Northern Kentucky and Robert Morris looking for some revenge, neither team can get complacent if they want to dominate.
Men’s Games: Will Basile, Finke and Calvin make up the difference?
When we talk about Wright State Basketball this year, it’s easy to say that Loudon Love and Tanner Holden are the stars of this team. But, IUPUI have some very impressive attacking threats as well, in Marcus Burk and Jaylen Minnett.
Both Burk and Minnett had over 35 points scored for the Jaguars in their two wins over Kentucky, as they are the focus of the attack. For Wright State, it is important to keep these players in check defensively and share the scoring as they have been in past games.
The Raiders have had 5-6 players averaging double-digit scoring games all year, while the Jaguars rely almost completely on Burk and Minnett.
With Grant Basile, Trey Calvin, and Tim Finke able to share the scoring with Love and Holden, they should be able to dominate both offensively and defensively.
While on paper, the IUPUI defense is #3 in the league, the Raiders are at #1 on offense and defense, and they beat #2 defense Cleveland State by 36 points on Saturday.
I expect a high-scoring game for the raiders against the IUPUI’s defense, while the Jaguar offense of Minnett and Burk is shut down by the strong WSU defense.
Women’s Games: Looking for Hale and Frierson
With the Lady Raiders already beating the Colonials twice this season, the Raiders have to look at what worked for them.
In both game one and game two last week, the Raiders found the least success when trying to play the Colonials game, relying on three-pointers and a less-physical style.
They were able to dominate in the last quarter of both games by drawing out fouls with quick breakaways to the rim with Angel Baker and getting easy baskets by pushing the ball to Tyler Frierson and Shamarre Hale.
Since both teams play a defensively strong game, drawing out fouls like they did in their game two and focusing on points under the basket was the Raiders’ ticket through the defense.
The Raider defense was able to keep RMU’s Esther Castedo in check and will be able to do so again. The only worry is focusing on playing a simple game, rather than a fancy one.
