In a series of dispatches, award-winning college basketball writrer and former USA Today columnist Mike Lopresti will share features with HorizonLeague.com. Today, Lopresti looks at a Wright State team trying to get over the final hurdle.
It is the wee hours of a Wednesday morning last March, and the Wright State basketball team is on the long road home, after an excruciating Horizon League championship game loss at Valparaiso.
With just over five minutes to go, the Raiders led by six points. A Cinderella story for a team picked to finish last in the league seemed ready for the happy ending. But they would score only four more points. They lost 62-54.
On the bus, coach Billy Donlon is watching the tape of those last dry, deadly minutes. Once, twice, five times, 10 times.
“The 11th time I was watching,” Donlon would say seven months later at the Horizon League media day, “(assistant) Scott Woods tapped me on the shoulder and he says, `Billy, it ain’t going to change. Turn the computer off.’
“So I did, and I haven’t watched it since.”
The near-miss memory drives all within the Wright State program.
“We were (five) minutes away. We want to get back there again,” returning leading scorer Cole Darling said. “The seniors have been trying to lead our guys right. We want to instill a sense of fire in the returning guys and our newcomers to try to get back there.”
Added Donlon, “One thing I learned and I promised our guys, if we can get back to that same position, I won’t coach this year. This way, I won’t screw them up.”
So Wright State has the motivation of a bad memory, plus nearly its entire team back. No wonder the Raiders are among the prime Horizon League choices, behind Green Bay by one point at the top of the preseason poll.
About those preseason forecasts, such as the one last season that assigned Wright State to the cellar. A direct question gets a direct Donlon answer.
“We had one bad year. Other people chose to pick us last, I didn’t choose to pick us last. The expectations of our program didn’t go down because we had one bad season.
“The target has been on Wright State’s back since Brad Brownell (his predecessor) became coach. That won’t change.”
More straight talk? Ask about the Horizon League’s struggles to get the BCS conference schools to visit them.
“There’s no sport that is played where the home court advantage is more of an advantage than in men’s college basketball. So when the BCS schools duck us, and yet they’re supposed to be better than us . . . Until there’s more consistency in playing them on neutral courts or at our home courts, we’re never really going to get a full test on how close the parity is.”
Or mention the NCAA committee’s strategies in first-round pairings.
“A lot of times it’s non-BCS vs. non-BCS. You think that’s by mistake? I know it’s going to get me in trouble with the committee for saying it, but when guys are working as hard as they are, I think it needs to get addressed. Both times Butler played in the first round to get to get to the championship game, they opened with Murray State (in the second round) and Old Dominion. So that’s one really good non-BCS school knocked out right away.
“Do I think it’s going to change? Probably not. But I believe in speaking what I believe to be the truth. There’s a lot more parity in the game than anybody ever wants to talk about, and it’s in our league. It’s why you can be picked ninth and finish a lot higher than people expect you to finish.”
Oh, and bring up Wright State’s offense. The Raiders are renowned defenders, limiting opponents to a league-low 58.5 points last season. But they finished last in scoring themselves, at 62.0.
Donlon understands that number needs to rise, but is a tad annoyed at how one reason for it often gets missed. Wright State’s defense makes teams work so hard at one end, it cuts down on offensive possessions at the other.
“I think it’s a little unfair because we get hurt in recruiting,” he said. “We don’t walk the ball up when the other team misses a shot. (Guard) Reggie Arceneaux is fast. I’d be really dumb if I didn’t let Reggie Arceneaux blow the ball up the court.
“But do we want to be last in scoring? No. We’ve practiced more offense early in the season than I ever have as either a head coach or an assistant. I do believe the best teams can win games in the 50s and the 70s. Last year’s team, it was really hard for us to win a game in the 70s.”
Or 62-54 in Valparaiso. Everyone remembers.
