By: Mike Lopresti
Selection Sunday for the 2014 NCAA Tournament, and Billy Donlon was sitting miserably in front of a television, wishing he could watch anything else. Sixty-eight teams would be bracketed, none of them named Wright State, and that hurt.
A few days before, his Raiders had lost in the Horizon League championship for the second year in a row – this time at home against Milwaukee. So who wanted to watch other teams happily jumping up and down? For a coach, it was the broadcast equivalent of root canal work.
“To know that could have been you,” Donlon said seven months later, with a new season ready to dawn. “I think you have to watch Selection Sunday, just because you’ve got to taste the medicine.”
The Raiders have had enough of this medicine, thank you very much. Donlon has put a product on the court big on depth and defense and balance, and it has taken Wright State to the doorstep of the NCAA Tournament two consecutive seasons, which is no small accomplishment. But then came unhappy endings.
“In some ways, that is a little bit the tragedy of sports,” Donlon said. “You’re so much evaluated on losing that game, as opposed to how difficult it is to get there.”
Can’t win the big game? How about the big games won to get to the big game? But make no mistake, the pain from near-misses is often self-inflicted.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt the loss is more stinging than the fact you got there,” Donlon said. “And it’s not even close.”
He wants to finish the deal one day soon for his players. For his university. And for a very personal reason; the director of operations for Wright State basketball who sits down the bench a ways. Bill Donlon, Sr. His father.
“He’s been coaching for 30 years and he’s never been on a team that’s gone to the NCAA Tournament,” the son said. “I so desperately want him to experience that.”
This season? The bad news is that all five starters from last year’s championship game lineup are gone, and the top returning scorer is forward JT Yoho at 7.9. The good news is that Donlon used his troops in waves. Eleven different Raiders started a game, nine averaged between 18.7 and 27.1 minutes, and 5.1 and 11.4 points.
It was like watching a pitching staff. If someone didn’t have his good stuff that day, Donlon would just wave to the bullpen for a reliever. For every Plan A, a Plan B. “The likelihood of us having two guys at the same position having a bad night last year were slim and none,” Donlon said.
Now the list of known quantities is shorter. Senior guard Reggie Arceneaux (7.1) started 18 games last season, and senior guard Kendall Griffin would probably have started more than 17 if not for injury. Yoho is back, and Chrishawn Hopkins (5.3), once a reserve on Butler’s second Final Four team, will be pushing for a bigger role, too.
“This year, the guys who are in the top seven or eight know they have to bring it every night for us to be successful,” Donlon said. “That’s more typical of most programs in the country but it hasn’t been what we’ve had for two years, so it’ll be different.”
Well, it’ll be different unless the new faces answer the call. Donlon called 6-8 freshman Roderick Davis “probably one of the best big men in eight years we’ve brought in.” And of guard Joe Thomasson, a vaunted JC transfer who grew up not far from campus, Donlon said, “We’ve recruited him, I think, since he was in the womb.”
The offense will be different, too. Wright State has been a scoreboard operator’s best friend; neither allowing nor accumulating points in a flurry. Now the Raiders are going up-tempo. They’re going to try, anyway.
“We’re going to play faster, and I mean that,” Donlon said. “If after 15 games or some significant number, if it isn’t working, will we change? Of course.
“Can we play different offensively without impacting our defense? That’s the big question.”
Donlon mentioned Kentucky, Florida, and Horizon cousin Green Bay as examples that you can play fast and still defend. He’ll see, and that issue is more urgent than worrying whether March’s sadness for Wright State will have another sequel. Especially in a league as flighty as the Horizon, where the team picked to finish last has shown up in the conference championship game two years running.
“I could make a case for seven teams to win the league,” Donlon aid. “With four freshmen and two transfers, you can’t focus on the end run. You really have to worry about the journey.”
But neither can you forget the disappointment of coming so close.
“Going to the championship game two years in a row has only made us more hungry,” Griffin said.
Donlon will be watching Selection Sunday again, no matter what. It would be nice if this time, he did not feel like throwing his chair through the screen.
Tags: Horizon League - Men's Basketball · Wright State - Men's Basketball
