The Raiders strengthened their hold on first in the league Friday with a 76-69 road victory, which completed a two-game sweep in the series and sent the Panthers further into the bottom half of the standings.
“Winning on the road is no small deal. We’re thankful and appreciative of the guys’ resiliency,” coach Clint Sargent said on his post-game radio show.
“I do think — and we said this to them — we praised a lot of (the performance). … But on the other side, we need to grow up in some areas and just flatten out a little bit.”
He was referring to the Raiders’ hot second-half start, followed by a long scoring drought.
“You’re always going to have peaks and valleys within a game. Everybody has really good players. Every coach in this league is very good. They’re going to respond. But you’d like to see those bad moments be a little less bad,” Sargent said.
After building a 10-point halftime lead, the Raiders started the second half on a 12-3 run to push the margin to 19 with 17:17 to go.
The Panthers (9-14, 5-7) cut the gap to 52-48 with 7:42 left, but they could get no closer.
A three-point play by Kellen Pickett pushed the lead back to seven, and the Raiders (14-8, 9-2) were out of danger.
TJ Burch had 18 points and Dom Pangonis 16.
Michael Imariagbe had eight points and 11 rebounds for his second straight double-figure effort on the boards.
Michael Cooper had 13 points off the bench, and Solomon Callaghan had 12.
The Raiders started 1 of 13 from 3 and finished 7 of 26. They shot 45.9% overall.
The defense led the way. The Panthers started 0 of 12 from 3 and finished 5 of 25, and they shot 42% overall.
Next game
Who: Wright State at Green Bay
When: 3:30 p.m. Friday
Streaming: ESPN+
Radio: 1410-AM, 101.5-FM
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