At this time, I’m not aware of any Wright State blog. The best news source on the Raiders comes from their section in the Dayton Daily News (annoying free registration).
Of course, there is their official website.
Wright State car mats available on eBay. Because, personally, I think the best way to show love to my school is put wet and muddy shoes all over the logo.
Raider fans discount their whuppin’ by LSU (in the comments) as just one of those things from December when they were still learning the system.
Now, you might think that as I live in the Cleveland area and Cleveland St. is in the Horizon League with WSU, I might have some knowledge. No. Watching Horizon League action was never high on my “to watch” list for basketball. Bad basketball is hard enough to watch, but couple it with poor coverage quality and the only way to somewhat enjoy it is completely sauced. And at that point, I’m just not getting much insight into the teams. But I digress.
The break down from the YSU assistant coach is encouraging. While DeShaun Woods seems to be the kind of guard that can cause problems for Pitt, their game is the kind that is what Pitt wants.
Wright State plays a similar game as Pitt. The Raiders like a half-court tempo with aggressive man-to-man defense, which they play about 80 percent of the time.
“They don’t want to get up and down,” Thorne said. “It’s strange. It’s the same thing as Pitt. They grind it out. They both run set plays. Wright State prides themselves on defense, similar to Pitt. They are very good defensively. They are always where they should be.”
Todd Brown, a 6-5 guard, and Vaughn Duggins, a 6-3 guard, were both named to Horizon League All-Newcomer team.
Naturally with Wright State making the Tournament for the first time in 14 years, they are giddy over their coach. Even as the whiff on Dixon was noted.
Four years ago, WSU athletics director Mike Cusack narrowed his coaching search down to two guys — Paul Biancardi and Jamie Dixon — as the replacement for fired Raiders’ coach Ed Schilling.
He chose Biancardi and you know how that worked out thanks to an NCAA violations mess that eventually followed the former Ohio State assistant from his days in Columbus.
Had Cusack hired Dixon — who now will coach his No. 3 seeded Pitt Panthers against the 14th seeded Raiders in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday in Buffalo — there wouldn’t have been the headaches of the past couple of seasons. But then there almost certainly would be no Brad Brownell now either.
The present coach has been studying tape since the seedings were announced.
So instead of being happy with crumbs, he probably wanted a little more of the tournament cake — something better than a 14 seed.
Of course, some of that tightness behind the smile had to be because, as he put it, “We’re going to be here most of the night.”
Everyone at the paper seems to think it might be a good idea to definitely review the game tape of the Dayton-Pitt game.
Here are the game notes from Wright State (PDF). The entire history of the two teams are two meetings in 1998 and 1999. Pitt won both of them.
Wright State hasn’t beaten anyone good with the exception of Butler, who by the way, is only 4-4 in their past 8 games.
I expect Gray to create open looks for Graves, Ramon, Fields, etc. and for us to be up comfortably 12-14 points all game. If they don’t double/triple Gray, then he is going to go for 25+.
In any case, good reading.
It would just be a matter of pulling it all together at this one time. That’s a huge task, but freakin’ George Mason did it last year, so I still have a strong belief that this team can at least make it to a showdown with the Jayhawks. If they got there, then anything could happen.
Cool
