Wright State basketball: Raiders take care of business in pounding Phoenix

Credit: JEROLD WILKINS

Credit: JEROLD WILKINS

FAIRBORN — Wright State’s Trey Calvin knows enough about what’s unfolding in the Horizon League to realize he and his cohorts were playing one of the worst teams in the country Saturday night.

“They’re not in a good spot now,” he said of visiting Green Bay. “We knew we had to come in and bring it to them, be aggressive and put it on them.”

The Raiders did all of the above in a 77-46 victory that raised their record to 13-10 overall and to .500 in the league for the first time this season at 6-6.

They allowed only 16 points in the first half — just two more than Calvin scored on his way to a game-high 18. The Phoenix had more turnovers than field goals, going a grisly 5 of 27 from the field while coughing it up seven times.

Though the Raiders were coming off a gutty win against first-place Milwaukee two days earlier, coach Scott Nagy still felt uneasy about visit from Green Bay, which fired its coach last week and dropped to 2-21 with its 13th consecutive loss.

“Coming into this weekend, I was more worried about this game than I was the Milwaukee game — just in terms of preparing our players and having them emotionally ready,” he said.

“The crowd helped. We had a great crowd tonight. And Tim (Finke) and Trey were tremendous. They gave us a great start. They were locked in. And they forced everyone else to get to that level.”

A.J. Braun had 13 points and nine rebounds, and Andrew Welage had 12 points before a Homecoming Night crowd of 5,418.

Finke had his usual all-around solid game with six points, six rebounds and a team-high four assists.

The 16 points equaled the second-fewest allowed by the Raiders in half in seven years under Nagy.

Cedarville had 14 in a 58-39 loss five years ago. Jacksonville had 16 in a 68-44 defeat six years ago.

The Phoenix, ranked 360th out of 363 teams in the NET ratings, trailed 60-23 with 11:22 to go in the second half and looked to be on the verge of breaking the Wright State record for fewest opponent points.

UIC had 31 on Jan. 24, 2009.

But Green Bay scored 23 more in the final 8:38 of garbage time.

“It’s unfortunate for those kids and the staff with what’s going on there. It’s a bad deal,” Nagy said.

“I’ve been in bad situations before, and I can see it on their faces. It’s unfair to them for sure.”

The Raiders were 30 of 54 from the field (55.6%) and held the Phoenix to the fewest total points and field-goal percentage (29.6) for an opponent this season.

The only troubling part of the night was star Brandon Noel being held without a field goal for the second straight game.

The all-league candidate had two points from the foul line after going scoreless against Milwaukee. But he had a combined 20 rebounds in the two games.

“Brandon is struggling,” Nagy said. “He’s kind of in his own head right now. I think he’ll come out of it. I’m not overly concerned about it.

“He’s struggling, and he still had nine rebounds and 11 the other night. That’s fine. Just do that for us until you get your confidence back.”

THURSDAY’S GAME

Wright State at Youngstown State, 7 p.m., ESPN+, 980

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