The Wright State men's basketball team wraps up its weekend road trip in the state of Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon as the Raiders take on Green Bay with tipoff slated for 2 p.m. ET. The Horizon League-leading Raiders are 19-4 overall (9-1 HL) and 7-1 away from home, while Green Bay is 10-13 overall (5-5 HL) with a 6-5 mark at home this season. Wright State has won four games in a row, and 12 of its last 13 overall dating back to mid-December and Green Bay enters the matchup losers of its last two games and has dropped three of its last five home games overall.
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Last time out, Wright State gutted out a 65-61 road victory on Friday night at Milwaukee, despite scoring just 26 first half points and shooting 39 percent for the game. The Raiders closed the night out with nine of the final 13 points over the last 3:15 to close out the victory. Tied at 57-all with 3:15 remaining after a pair of
Bill Wampler free throws, Wright State closed the night on an 8-4 run, using a 6-for-8 mark at the free throw line over that closing stretch to grab the win. The Raiders saw three players finish with double-digit scoring nights, led by Wampler's game-high 19 points, 12 of which came in the second half, to go along with seven rebounds.
Tanner Holden scored 11 of his 16 points over the final 20 minutes, including a 7-of-8 mark at the free throw line. Love recorded the night's only double-double, finishing with 16 points and 13 rebounds while adding a block, steal and an assist.
FACING THE PHOENIX
Sunday will be the 65th meeting all-time between Wright State and Green Bay, with the series tied 32-32 after the Raiders have won seven of the last eight games. In the first meeting of the year back, Wright State saw three players score 20-plus points (Love, 22pts., 16 reb. / Gentry, 21pts. / Wampler, 20pts.) while
Jaylon Hall added 15 points. The first meeting came back on December 7, 1987, a Green Bay victory in the Raiders' first year as a Division I program. Head coach
Scott Nagy is 7-2 against Green Bay with the Raiders.
PHOENIX RISING
Green Bay is coming off of a 71-62 home loss to Northern Kentucky on Friday night, allowing NKU to used a late 22-4 run to be the difference. Green Bay had had four players finish in double figures, led by Amari Davis with 14 points and seven rebounds. Green Bay's senior leader had the best individual weekend of his season at CSU and YSU, scoring 31 at Cleveland State before dumping another 30 at Youngstown State. JayQuan McCloud went 21-for-30 from the field, including a 12-for-13 effort from the charity stripe. He also led Green Bay with 14 rebounds and 10 assists in the two games combined, hitting 7 3-pointers. McCloud ranks fourth in the Horizon League in scoring with 17.4 PPG, but leads the HL in assists with 6.1 APG through 9 games. He has scored double-figures in 20 of 22 games this year and has 20 or more points in five games, with 30 or more in three games. Cody Schwartz is in the midst of his best stretch of basketball in his Green Bay career, having scored 15, 13 and 15 points in his last three games. Schwartz is shooting 15-for-24 (62.5 percent) over the last three games and is averaging over 5 rebounds during that stretch as well. He has started in four-straight games and is playing 30 minutes per game as well. Schwartz is second on the team in scoring over the last three games, right behind JayQuan McCloud.
THAT'S A FIRST
Aided by a slow shooting start, Wright State scored below 70 points for the first time this season in the Jan. 31 victory over Milwaukee. Wright State's previous low scoring half was back on Nov. 12 at Tennessee Tech with a 27-point first half in a game that went to overtime. The Raiders have scored between 70-79 points 11 times this season, wile the 65-point final score surpassed the previous low of 70 points, done twice (72-70 loss vs. La Salle / 70-69 win at Detroit Mercy), along with a pair of 71-point games.
Coaches Powering Forward for Autism
The Wright State coaches are joining staffs across the country in raising autism awareness as part of the Coaches Powering Forward for Autism initiative by wearing blue puzzle piece pins on their suit jackets this weekend. The puzzle ribbon was adopted in 1999 as the universal sign of autism awareness and reflects the complexity of the autism spectrum.
Autism Speaks Coaches Powering Forward was created in 2014 after NCAA Coaches Pat Skerry and Tom Herrion embarked on a mission to raise awareness of autism. Since starting six years ago, more than 4,400 Autism Speaks puzzle piece pins have been provided to increase understanding and acceptance of people with autism during the February weekend games.