DAYTON – Brandon Noel tallied his 11th double-double of the season with a 20-point, 16-rebound effort to lead three Raiders in double figures as the No. 7-seeded Wright State men's basketball team advanced to the quarterfinals with a 77-57 victory over No. 10 Green Bay in the opening round of the 2023 Barbasol Horizon League Championship inside the Nutter Center Thursday night.
With the win, Wright State (18-14) advances to take on No. 2 Milwaukee on Thursday night in Wisconsin in quarterfinal action. Tipoff time is set for 8 p.m. ET and Raider fans can follow the action by watching on ESPN+ or by tuning in on WONE 980 AM.
The Raiders led for just shy of 38 minutes on Tuesday but were unable to go on a sustained scoring run to put the game out of reach for the majority of the night as Green Bay (3-29) saw three double-digit scorers of its own to hang around just within arm's reach.
Wright State led 35-27 at the break after closing the first half by scoring eight of the last 11 points heading into the locker room. The Raiders quickly pushed the advantage to 12 in the early moments of the second half before Green Bay chipped away, cutting the margin to just seven on three occasions, the last of which came at the 12:07 mark with Wright State leading 52-45. The Raiders responded with a 12-5 run over the next six minutes to gain complete control, pushing the advantage back to doubld digits with a Noel layup at the 9:07 mark and never looking back.
Noel tallied 15 of his game-high 20 points in the second half as he notched his 22nd game this season with 20 or more points while going 8-of-11 from the floor and adding two assists, two blocks and a steal to his double-double mark.
Trey Calvin got the Raiders rolling early with nine of his 14 points in the first half, while
Tim Finke connected on a trio of three-pointers on the way to his 13 points and seven rebounds.
Nine different Raiders found the scoring column in the win as eight players tallied a rebound, with Wright State ending the night owning a 42-20 rebounding edge including 33 rebounds on the defensive end.
Wright State shot 59 percent in the second half on the way to finishing the night shooting 52 percent overall (29-56) with nine total three-pointers (9-19, 47 percent). Green Bay was limited to 36 percent shooting (20-55) while the visitors were 8-of-25 from three-point range (32 percent).
Randy Tucker finished with 20 points to lead Green Bay in the loss, while Clarence Cummings III had 14 and Cade Meyer added 10 points for the visitors.
