But then in a game featuring 11 ties and 18 lead changes, with the biggest lead turning out to be the final score, chalk prevailed again as Virginia went on a late surge to survive and advance, 82-73.
“Difficult game to lose with how we competed,” said Wright State’s second-year coach, Clint Sargent. “Even more difficult when you get to this.
“It’s always abrupt how you end. But these guys have given me an awful lot and I’m certainly proud to be their coach. I can tell you that much.”
Meanwhile his players, who had gone on a 9-0 run to take a 70-67 lead with 5:32 left before UVA took command down the stretch, weren’t about to look back.
“At the end of the day, we put our best foot forward,” said Wright State guard Solomon Callaghan, who scored 18 points, knocking down four 3-pointers. “I feel super proud of the rest of the guys.
“You’re always going to sit back at the end of the loss and think, ‘What could we have done better?’ At the end of the day, I know we were going as hard as we could and doing everything we could.”
So did Virginia, which will take on Tennessee.
“I can’t say enough good things about Wright State,” said Virginia coach Ryan Odom, whose club shot 28-for-54 (51.9%) and were topped by Jacari White’s 26 points. “They played lights out.
“They gave us everything that we could handle throughout the game. It was an excellent and well-played game, a real competitive game. They played a little bit differently than we were expecting going into the game and how we prepared.”.
That’s because Sargent says they didn’t have a choice.
“We knew we had to free guys up to shoot rhythm threes and we did some different things with our ball to shrink coverage,” said Sargent after the usually inside-focused Raiders hoisted up 31 from beyond the arc, hitting 13 of those but going just 25-for-61 (41.0%) overall.
“But really I thought the game kind of came down to the glass and those extra possessions. Obviously with their size and rim protection, that’s a lot to handle for us.”
Of course, having taken the highly regarded Cavaliers almost to the wire has to make folks wonder if Wright State should’ve been higher than a 14 seed.
“That’s kind of what happens being a mid-major,” said freshman Michael Cooper, who scored 13 points, but shot an uncharacteristic 6-for-18 from the floor. “But we tried to take it upon ourselves to show what we could do.
“We were capable of winning, but we didn’t make a couple of key plays down the stretch and couldn’t finish the job.”
So while it ended in disappointment for the 23-12 Raiders, the tightknit feeling of closeness will sustain them as they head into the off-season.
“The time we’ve shared has been everything you dream of when you dream of being a head coach,” said Sargent, who could have most of his squad returning next year — depending on the transfer portal — with senior Michael Imariagbe, who scored a team-high 19 points, the only regular leaving.
“What they’ve poured into, not only me and my family, but each other. the word enjoyable doesn’t even do it justice.
“We just drew together as a team through the highs and lows of basketball. We started off 5-7. They didn’t wilt and they didn’t flinch. They just got closer and closer and closer.”
Almost close enough on the court to live another day.
“I just feel like there was a little bit of time where we had some slippage,” said Callaghan, with Wright State turning it over six times in the second half after just one first half miscue. “We started having a couple of turnovers, which led them in the transition, which is what they do very well.
“I felt like if we could have cleaned that up a little bit down the stretch, we might have had a different result.”
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