BLOOMINGTON, IN – Indiana native
Andrew Welage turned in a career-high 25 points on Thursday as the Wright State men's basketball team battled all night at Indiana, eventually coming up short 89-80.
Wright State (0-3) now gets set for MTE tournament action in Florida with contests Monday through Wednesday at the Gulf Coast Showcase. The Raiders open play Monday afternoon with a 5 p.m. tipoff against Louisiana.
On Thursday, the Raiders saw Welage score his 25 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including connecting on seven of his 10 three-point attempts, with the points, overall shooting and three-pointers made all new career-bests, with the 25 points a game-high on both sides as well.
In addition to Welage,
Tanner Holden tallied 24 points as he reached the 20-plus point mark for the 27th time as a Raider and
Alex Huibregtse added 15 points while connecting on a trio of three-pointers of his own. Welage, Holden and Huibregtse combined to shoot 51 percent between the group (21-of-41) while hitting 11-of-17 three-point shots and knocking down 11 of their combined 15 free throw attempts.
Drey Carter chipped in six points off the bench on 3-of-3 shooting, while
AJ Braun and
Brandon Noel each had four points and
Kaden Brown added a basket. Noel and Holden each had eight rebounds and Braun pulled down seven boards as the Raiders ended the night with a 40-37 rebounding edge overall and a 14-8 advantage on the offensive glass.
Indiana (3-0) took control in the opening minutes, extending the advantage to as much as 15 points at the midway point of the first half and still held a 10-point lead with four minutes until intermission. The Raiders closed the first half with 14 of the final 22 points and trailed 54-49 at the break.
A single-digit margin over the first nine minutes of the second half, Indiana used a layup to go up 11 with 11:29 remining, but again Wright State fought back, this time with five of the next seven points and it was back to a five-point margin at 73-68 with just under eight minutes to play. However, Indiana responded with eight of the next 11 points to push the margin back to double digits at 12 with 4:17 to play and enough cushion to hold off the Raiders.
Wright State shot 47 percent in the opening 20 minutes before finishing the night with a 41 percent overall rate (28-of-68) from the floor while connecting on 11-of-26 three-point attempts (42 percent). The Raiders were 13-of-17 (77 percent) from the free throw stripe, including a 10-of-11 mark in the first half. Indiana connected at a 67 percent clip at the first half before finishing at 54 percent (33-of-61) while going 3-of-16 (19 percent) from three-point range, including missing all eight second half attempts. The hosts were 20-of-32 (63 percent) from the free throw line.
