Latest News

Shorthanded Loss Snaps Men’s Basketball Win Streak

Men's Basketball on the road

Men’s Basketball on the road | Photo by Christian Peters | The Wright State Guardian


Wright State University (WSU) Men’s Basketball was forced to play shorthanded in both of its games this week, winning the first 75-73 over the Robert Morris Colonials (RMU) and losing the second 87-90 to the Youngstown State Penguins (YSU).

With four players for the Raiders sitting out due to COVID-19 protocols, and four others out due to injuries, WSU only had seven players in their fifteen-player roster fit to play in this week’s games, with five of those being scholarship players.

This led to nearly four players in both games playing a full game without a break, and WSU’s players completely worn out at the end of the games.

“I’m sure fatigue did catch up with us, it had to,” Jim Brown, former Head Coach of WSU, said. “But still, these were two gutty performances by the Raiders with only five scholarship players, they just got worn down a little bit.”

Down on defense

Just as he has all season, Head Coach Scott Nagy is still drilling into his players that the team’s defensive play needs to improve.

“Our kids are heartbroken in there, and it’s unfortunate,” Nagy said after the close loss to Youngstown. “But if our defense doesn’t get any better then we’re gonna feel this way a lot.”

The Raiders currently have the second-worst defense in the Horizon League, allowing 75.1 PPG. Of WSU’s eight losses this year, in five of them, including the loss against Youngstown, the Raiders scored 75 or more points but still ended up losing the game.

“You know, this game kind of takes me back to the first game of the season at Marshall,” Chris Collins, a commentator for WONE 980 AM, said after the YSU game. “You score 80 plus points, but you give up 90. In that case, a little above 90.”

While the Raiders are scoring 75.4 PPG, the second-best in the league, their defense just is not enough to win a championship over a team like the Oakland Golden Grizzles, who score 75.5 PPG and allow 66.1.

“We have enough offense, our defense is just not good enough right now to win a championship,” Nagy said. “You can’t give up fifty points in the second half.”

No excuses from Nagy

While WSU’s lack of available players affected the outcome of the game, Nagy gave no excuses for the loss and stated they should have won the game.

“Our kids played their butts off, but there will be no excuses,” Nagy said. “We are very disappointed we didn’t win this game. Flat out we should have won.”

The win for the Penguins came off of its dominant play in the second half, where they scored 50 points in 20 minutes of play and scored in 11 of their last 13 possessions to win by three points.

In the last few minutes of the game, where play largely matters the most, the Raiders seemed too tired to muster a defense against the Penguins.

“When you can’t get consecutive stops in crunch time … it puts so much pressure on your offense, “ Brown said. “We just couldn’t stop them.”


Noah Kindig

Sports Reporter

Verified by MonsterInsights