The Wright State men's basketball team improved to 3-0 in Horizon League play with a 96-69 road victory at Oakland on Friday night in front of a national audience on ESPNU. The Raiders (12-3, 3-0 HL) saw five players score in double figures for the second straight game as they pushed their winning streak up to six in a row.
 
Wright State remains in the Detroit metro area for a Sunday afternoon tilt against Detroit Mercy, with tipoff scheduled for 1 p.m. on ESPN+.
 
The Raiders have now won the six straight games in the series against Oakland (6-9, 1-1 HL), and hit the 90-point mark for the fourth time this season – and third time in the last five games. In their Horizon League opener last weekend, Wright State scored 90 in a win over Green Bay, and are now averaging 89.33 points/game over three conference games.
 
Friday night, it was upperclassman leadership pacing Wright State, as Bill Wampler finished with a game-high 21 points, his fourth time with 20+ points this season, while Cole Gentry set the tone in the first half for the offense. Gentry finished with 13 points, all in the opening 20 minutes, as the Raiders took a 20-point lead into the locker room at the half.
 
Jaylon Hall finished with 16 points, Tanner Holden joined Gentry with 13 and Jordan Ash tallied 10 points and a game-high nine rebounds off the bench for Wright State.
 
Up by three with eight minutes to go in the first half, Wright State closed the half on a 27-10 run to take the double-digit advantage into the break, then scored eight of the first 10 points in the second half to secure total control of the game.
 
The teams traded buckets in the opening minutes, with Oakland hitting a jumper to take a short-lived 17-15 lead, which was answered moments later by a Gentry three-pointer, and the Raiders would never trail again. In the second half, Wright State never let the advantage drop below 20 points, growing the lead to as many as 30 with four minutes to go on an Ash layup.
 
The Raiders shot 60 percent as a team in the first half before finishing the night connecting at a 57 percent rate (36-of-63). Oakland hit 43 percent of its shots (26-of-60), but just three three-pointers, while Wright State saw Gentry hit three three-pointers of his own, along with multiple three-pointers from Hall and Wampler, on the way to shooting 47 percent from deep.
 
The battle on the glass went to the Raiders, who finished with a 40-28 rebounding advantage while pulling down 26 defensive boards alone. Wright State also had a 12-point edge in points in the paint (52-40) and forced Oakland into 16 turnovers and created 20 points off those giveaways, while the Raiders also received 25 points from the bench as nine different players scored.