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Home > Blogs > Wright State University sports > Archives > 2009 > December > 21 > Entry
Familiar faces for Raiders
FAIRBORN — Two teams that helped define Wright State’s previous season will both play at the Nutter Center during the next week.
First, on Tuesday, Arkansas-Little Rock visits for a 7 p.m. game, lugging a 4-5 record and three-game losing streak.
Then, next Monday, Sam Houston State comes calling, also at 7.
Maybe the UALR Trojans were a little aggressive with their scheduling, coming off two straight 20-win seasons (23-8 last year) and returning only one starter. On most strength-of-schedule boards, UALR’s schedule ranks among the top 20 in the nation and the Trojans have already played at Mississippi and Tulsa, Creighton and South Alabama and against Memphis.
It doesn’t matter. Wright State will always have a fondness for UALR becaue it was a game that helped turn around a season. Remember, the Raiders opened 0-6 and had already lost their best player, Vaughn Duggins, to injury.
Finally, the team beat Toledo, then went into Little Rock with a puny 1-6 record. The Raiders won, 62-55, behind a big game by Arkansas native Cory Cooperwood and a game-sealing slam dunk by the since graduated Gavin Horne. The Raiders won 11 of their next 13 games and finished the season 20-13.
You could also make a case than Sam Houston State helped turn the Raiders in the right direction, although that game may have represented their worst play of the season in an 84-65 loss.
“That was a good team that just blew us out,” WSU coach Brad Brownell said. “We had the injury to Vaughn (he played in that game with his hand taped, but it was his last game of the season) and we began to think a little bit about how to play the rest of the season.
“We slowed the tempo and even though we lost the next two games at Green Bay and Milwaukee, we thought we knew how we were going to win and how this was going to turn out.”
It turned out well. And now two major opponents in that turnaround are here to face the Raiders again.
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