During this past week, the Wright State Raiders men’s basketball team (6-5, 1-1 Horizon) kicked off Horizon League play on the road in the Great Lakes State of Michigan by losing one game and winning another.
Last Thursday night, Clint Sargent and his guys kicked off conference action with a very tough 66-64 loss at defending Horizon League Champion Oakland inside of the OU Credit Union O’rena, which extended their losing streak to four games. Leading scorer Brandon Noel was locked down throughout the whole 40 minutes, finishing with six points on 2-of-11 shooting, along with five rebounds, four assists, and a pair of blocks. Alex Huibregtse was the only Raider starter that night who scored in double-figures with 12 points.
Wright State’s bench recorded half of the squad’s 64 points: 12 each for Andrew Welage and Solomon Callaghan, and 10 for Jack Doumbia who also grabbed six rebounds.
Logan Woods tied the game up at 64 with a three with 2:46 left, but later turned it over, allowing Allen Mukeba – the game’s top scorer with 16 points along with seven rebounds – to score the go-ahead bucket with 1:04 to go. Noel, Woods, and Huibregtse then all missed go-ahead three-pointers to suffer the defeat. Besides Wright State hitting a program record 16 three-pointers and shooting 51.6 percent from downtown (16-of-31), they were outrebounded by the opposition 35-29.
Jaylen Jones, who made his season debut for Oakland, led everyone with nine rebounds and showed off his hustle in 22 minutes of action off the bench.
Last Saturday afternoon, the Raiders bounced back in a big way in their 80-72 win over Detroit Mercy inside of Calihan Hall. Both teams came in 5-5, while the Titans program were turning things around for the better with five wins through their first ten games of this season after having only one win in 32 games all of last season.
It was a seesaw battle to start the afternoon with both squads trading buckets. T.J. Nadeau gave UDM the 14-12 lead with 12:26 left in the first half, but WSU took the lead with a game-tying lay-up from Doumbia and a go-ahead three-pointer from Noel to make it 17-14. From that point on, Sargent’s guys never relinquished the lead. Woods and Nadeau then traded three-pointers within the last minute and a half of the first half with Woods hitting two of them, including a buzzer beater. That long bomb from Woods as time expired in the first half begun a 10-0 run for the green and gold from that time through the first minute and 43 seconds of the second half, allowing their biggest lead of the game at 49-34. Wright State led by double-digits on numerous occasions throughout the second half and ended up earning the eight-point win.
Doumbia, who started in place of Michael Imariagbe, ended up with the best game of his career as he finished with 21 points and 13 rebounds as well as three blocks. Noel had a very good bounceback game with 26 points on 11-of-13 shooting, plus seven rebounds. Huibregtse dropped 17 points of his own to go along with six assists and a pair of steals, while Woods scored all nine of points in the first half and was a perfect 3-for-3 from beyond the arc.
Detroit Mercy had five players score in double-figures led by Orlando Lovejoy, who had 14 points along with seven rebounds. 12 points for Nate Johnson, 11 each for Nadeau and Grant Gondrezick II, and 10 points and eight rebounds for Legend Geeter. Emmanuel Kuac also contributed with eight points.
Wright State shot 57.1 percent from the field (28-of-49) and outrebounded Detroit Mercy 34-32, but the Raiders also had twice as more turnovers (14) than the Titans (7).
Up next: Wright State will come back home to the Nutter Center and play a non-conference game against the Marshall Thundering Herd on Wednesday, December 11 at 7:00ET.
