“We’ve had a lot going on with our team, but we’re a brotherhood. That’s what we always say: Brotherhood over basketball,” Basile said.
“We just try to stick together — not do anything special, but just love on each other. It’s important to show how much we care about each other regardless of what’s going on with basketball. Basketball is a big a thing — that’s what drives us and bonds us together — but what will keep us together is our love for each other on and off the court.”
Those tight-knit relationships have helped the Raiders seize three straight Horizon League regular-season titles, and they’re in position for a fourth in a row as they near the midway point in the conference schedule.
They won seven straight games before falling at Youngstown State with a depleted roster Saturday — improving to 9-8 overall and 6-2 in the league — and Basile knows how they managed to dig themselves out of that early-season hole.
“When we were on that winning streak, defense was carrying us,” he said. “N.C. State was one of our better defensive games. That was a huge win for us. You can see in games we lost and in games we won, it all comes down to defense.”
“No matter how good you are offensively, if you’re not good defensively, you’re not going to win a championship. That’s our aspiration. We’ll win games playing the way we are offensively. But the next step has to come on defense, or we’re not going to be where we want to be.”
Basile was a preseason first-team all-league pick and has looked like one of the HL’s top five players.
He’s fourth in scoring with an 18.3 average, second in rebounding at 8.9 per game and second in blocks at 1.5.
Down to just five scholarship players in two games last week, the Raiders needed him to produce — and he did. He tallied a combined 49 points and 18 rebounds while playing all but about 15 seconds of a possible 80 minutes.
But the 6-foot-9, 240-pound junior isn’t satisfied with all aspects of his game.
“I’ve got to get better defensively. That’s a big thing with our team. There’s a ways to go in that for me,” he said. “Offensively, I need to take care of the ball better and shoot a better percentage from 3 and from the floor. It’s been all right, but I think I can make better decisions.”
Basile is shooting 48% from the field after hitting 61.7% last season. And his accuracy from 3-point land also has dipped.
He had the team’s top percentage in 2020-21, going 20 of 43 (47.6) but is 15 of 68 (22.1) this season.
He’s not alone, though, in his struggles beyond the arc. The Raiders are shooting just 30.4% (ninth in the league) after hitting 37.0 (third) last season.
They’ve been trying to recover from going a combined 8 of 49 in back-to-back November games against Purdue and George Washington, and they’re trending in the right direction.
In their two games last week, they went a respectable 6 of 16 against Robert Morris and a season-best 9-of-22 against Youngstown State.
“Our guys aren’t having as good a year shooting the ball. I think early in the year, that was really a problem. We shot so poorly, it’s hard for your season stats to ever look good,” Nagy said.
“The question is, what have we done in our last seven or eight games? What have we done in league? We’re doing better there.”
The Raiders are shooting 35.3% in conference games, which trails only Milwaukee’s 36.4 clip.
“We’re taking better shots. We were not taking good shots early in the season. We’ve got that under control,” Nagy said.
“Our offense is way better. Teams are really trying to stop us from scoring inside, which allows us to get more open 3′s.”
THURSDAY’S GAME
Wright State at IUPUI, 7 p.m., ESPN+, 980
About the Author