The second-year coach wants to pit his players consistently against quality opposition — not necessarily making treks to play blue bloods like Kentucky (which he did in his career debut), but games against competitive equals that will push his team to the limit.
“I just believe you’ve got to put your neck on the line. It’s that fight or flight. You’re called to go fight,” he said.
“There’s a balance to it, but you want your players to be fearless. And they need to catch that from you.”
The balance comes in not having a string of challenging games without a breather.
The Raiders have hosted a pair of Division-III foes in Ohio Wesleyan and Franklin, but they’ve also traveled to California and Butler.
Fans have to stifle yawns when lower-division foes come to town, but there’s a financial element to it: Home games cost money.
“You’re looking at 60 to 80 grand for a low-major,” Sargent of the payouts. “You can buy a non-D-I for five grand.”
The school is adjusting to the revenue-sharing world with athletes, and every dollar counts. That’s why a majority of road games works.
Besides, Sargent said: “If we just played four non-D-I’s and we tried to buy a bunch of wins, I would find myself feeling a little hypocritical. We try to find balance. We go running into (tough tests).”
The Raiders will play five of 11 non-league games at home this season, including three against the MAC, which is annually a few notches above the Horizon League in conference computer ratings.
They host Miami and Eastern Michigan after Saturday’s trip to Marshall.
They played four of 11 non-league games at the Nutter Center in the previous three years and three of nine in 2021-22 (they had 22 league games that year).
COVID virtually wiped out the entire non-conference schedule in 2020-21.
In the three years before that — which was the start of coach Scott Nagy’s tenure, and Sargent was a top assistant — they had seven non-league home games each year.
But the school hosted in-season tourneys the first two years, gifting the new staff with four extra home games.
Only high-majors have that luxury these days.
“They rarely go on the road,” Sargent said. “We have to do it a little differently.
“But I think on KenPom, we’re in the top-120 in strength of schedule (actually 118). I’ve been pleased with that thus far.”
COACH T’D UP: Sargent seems like one of the least likely coaches in the country to get tagged with a technical, but he got the first of his career last week at Youngstown State.
“I deserved it. I was right. But how I chose to communicate, I deserved it,” he said, before adding with a smile, “Let’s move on from that.”
The Raiders had another bench tech against Green Bay on Sunday, but it was because of a scorebook error.
FRESHMAN OF WEEK: Michael Cooper was named HL freshman of the week after averaging 15.5 points while shooting 45.5% from the field and 38.5% from 3 in two league games.
He’s won two of the five awards this season.
NEXT GAME
Who: Wright State at Marshall
When: 4 p.m. Saturday
Streaming: ESPN+
Radio: 1410-AM, 101.5-FM
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