Wright State basketball: Raiders’ season ends with OT loss to Northern Kentucky

It’s over, right?

Hardly. Far from it.

Fourth-seeded Wirght State dropped a 99-97 overtime decision at home Thursday in the Horizon League quarterfinals — despite building a 17-2 lead in the first 4:45, leading by 17 with six minutes to go in the first half and, after the fifth-seeded Norse caught them, pulling away again for a 61-53 edge at 13:11 of the second half.

They seemed to have averted disaster after falling behind by one with under a minute to go. Trey Calvin scored on a drive with 35 seconds left for an 87-86 lead, and, after a rare miss from NKU star Marques Warrick, Calvin was fouled and converted a 1-and-1 with 15.4 seconds to go.

The Raiders certainly didn’t want to foul, but a hack at 4.4 seconds is essentially the go-to strategy for many teams when leading by three

Robinson made the first and, despite trying to make the second, clanked it off the rim.

Wright State’s 6-foot-6 wing, Tanner Holden, had his hands on the rebound, but 6-1 guard Randall Pettus II yanked it away and scored to tie the game with 0.9 seconds left.

“No matter where it came off, I was just going to try to get it. It came off and bounced into my hands. I just kind of ripped it from him and put it up,” Pettus said.

He actually was inside Holden when the ball came down. Asked how he pulled that off, he said: “Quick first step. I tried to be as fast as I could.

“I kind of tipped it from him, but he was bobbling it, too.”

NKU coach Darrin Horn bucked conventional thinking by not intentionally missing the second foul shot and hoping for a kind bounce. But it sounds as if he’s done that before.

“We told our guys at the timeout, ‘Here’s what we’re doing if he makes them both. If he misses, we’ve got to get in there and try to get an offensive rebound,’” Horn said.

“We didn’t miss on purpose. It’s kind of like fouling on a (late) 3. Everyone has a different opinion. I felt like with four and a half seconds (actually 4.4), I’d rather have the points and maybe even steal the ball (on the inbounds).

“We were thinking to try that and THEN foul if we don’t get it and still have 2.5 or 3 seconds to still run a full-court play.

“We had two guards in there. The guy who got the rebound was 6-1. If we were going to miss that on purpose, I’d have put big guys in there. He just made a great play.”

Wright State coach Scott Nagy didn’t sense a letdown going into overtime, but the Norse, who advance to the league semifinals Monday, took a five-point lead with 23 seconds to go.

Even with Calvin having fouled out, the Raiders had a chance to win.

Holden hit a deep 3 to cut it to two. Pettus was fouled, but he missed both free throws in a double bonus with eight seconds left.

After sprinting down the floor, Alex Huibregtse had a contested 3 from the wing for the win, but he couldn’t connect.

“One thing we wanted was to walk out of here knowing we gave everything we have, and that’s what our guys are doing,” Wright State coach Scott Nagy said. “You can’t always control the result.

“I thought they hit a LOT of tough shots in the second half. And I think you have to give them credit for that.”

As for the play at the end of regulation: he said: “It came off hard. I think it hit Tanner’s hands and came out. Those things — you don’t turn around and go, ‘We should have done something different.’ There are a lot of things (where that applies), but that’s not one of them for sure.”

The Raiders lost at home in the 2021 quarterfinals as a 2 seed (with a loaded roster led by Loudon Love) when seventh-seeded Milwaukee staged an improbable comeback. That one was hard to shake, and the latest setback will be no different.

“The only thing that will get rid of this pain is time. That’s it,” Nagy said.

The team that led the nation and set a school record in field-goal shooting, was sixth nationally in scoring and topped 90 points 14 times (the most at Wright State since the 1992-93 squad did it 15 times), fell short of reaching the semifinals for the third time in four years.

The Raiders won the title in 2022.

NKU’s Warrick was sensational again, scoring 35 points after ripping the Raiders for 39 in a loss Saturday. He was 11 of 18 from the field, 4 of 6 on 3′s and 9 of 9 on foul shots.

All five Wright State starters played admirably and scored in double figures with Tanner Holden getting 24 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in his career finale. He finished with 2,003 points, becoming the 16th player in league history to top 2,000.

“They’ve got one tremendous player that makes the rest of them really good,” Nagy said of Warrick. “They’re very well coached. They’re very tough. We had them down, but they didn’t give up.

“I think you have to give them a lot of credit. It was just a great basketball game. Both teams played hard. We played well enough offensively and defensively. Our effort was there.”