After finishing that grueling stretch, though, he realizes it took more out his players than he had anticipated.
The Raiders are 9-9 overall and 4-3 in the league — and they may have an edge in the title race with eight of their final 13 games at home — but Nagy thought his players had nothing left in the tank at the end of an 81-71 loss at Youngstown State on Friday
The Penguins overcame a 62-53 deficit with 9:33 to go, putting together a 20-1 run and finishing the game with 28 points over the last nine minutes.
“I knew we weren’t just going to continue to shoot the percentages we’ve been shooting. You have games where things don’t go well. But you could just tell, in terms of our shooting, our legs, it just looked like we’d been on the road a long time,” Nagy said.
“I think even emotionally, 10 out of 16 days (away from home) … more than anything, I think it just caught up to us.”
But what’s disconcerting to Nagy is that his team has had halftime leads in five of its nine losses — sometimes even letting foes rally from double-digit second-half deficits.
The Raiders lead the nation in field-goal shooting at 53.3% and are 14th in scoring with an 84.9 average. But they’re last in the league and 337th nationally in points allowed at 80.0.
“When we get rocked like we did (Friday), we’ve got to figure out how to win those games when we can’t lean on our scoring,” Nagy said.
“We need to be able to win ugly instead of just being front-runners when the ball’s going in and everybody feels great.”
The Raiders finished 27 of 67 from the field for 40.3%. In their four previous games, they shot 55.6%, 60.0, 66.1 and 60.7.
And while the national exposure of playing on ESPN2 is always welcome, being stuck with a 9 p.m. tipoff wasn’t ideal.
“What are you going to do in Youngstown when you don’t play till 9:00? You sit around and sit around,” Nagy said.
“It sounds funny, but it’s exhausting. I love the 1:00 game where you just get up and go play. We didn’t leave the hotel till 7:30 at night.”
The Raiders’ remaining games are all currently scheduled for 7 p.m. or earlier.
And Nagy is pleased his team handled a tough early draw with the conference schedule well enough to stay in the race. All HL teams have at least two losses.
“These kids are trying. I’m proud of them. It was a tough stretch we went through,” he said.
MOVING UP: Trey Calvin passed 2007 league player of the year DaShaun Wood for second on the program’s all-time scoring list in the first half. The fifth-year guard has 1,860 points, while Wood had 1,849 from 2003-07.
Tanner Holden passed Loudon Love for fourth on the career list with 1,795 points. Love, a two-time league player of the year, had 1,792 from 2017-21.
THURSDAY’S GAME
Green Bay at Wright State, 7 p.m., ESPN+, 101.5, 1410
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