Raiders' depth will be tested by Penguins
After beating defending Horizon League champion Northern Kentucky on Thursday to improve to 5-0 in conference play for the first time, Wright State will have its eyes set on another first today at the Nutter Center:
Slowing Cameron Morse. The Youngstown State guard has averaged 24.5 points in his four games against the Raiders,
including a 35-point outburst in the most recent meeting last February.
“I voted him for league MVP; I think he’s that good,” WSU coach Scott Nagy said of Morse, a 6-foot-2 senior. “Not only can he score, he’s a tremendous passer and he makes good decisions. He puts a lot of pressure on the defense.”
Morse and the Penguins (5-13, 3-2) started slowly due to a tough nonleague schedule that included Butler, DePaul and Indiana.
But YSU comes into the rare 4 p.m. weekday game against the Raiders (13-5, 5-0) ranked No. 2 in the HL in scoring offense (82.0) behind Morse’s 20.8-point average.
Compl ica t ing mat t ers for Wright State will be the expected absence of senior guard Justin Mitchell for the second game in a row. Mitchell, who has a
lot of experience guarding Morse, has asked for time away from the team due to personal reasons.
“We’d like to have him with us,” Nagy said. “For personal reasons, he said he needed some time away from the court, so we’re giving him that.”
Nagy said he doesn’t know how long the team will be without Mitchell but doesn’t expect him to be back for Youngstown State, saying “probably no way.”
Mitchell ranks second in scoring (11.1) and rebounding (7.1) on a team that already uses a thin rotation.
That’s why a few minutes after moving into sole possession of first place with the 84-81 win at NKU, which featured a season-high 31 points from Grant Benzinger, a double-double from Loudon Love and several clutch plays down the stretch by Cole Gentry, Mark Hughes and Everett Winchester, Nagy spent time in a postgame interview praising the contri- butions of a guy who played seven minutes and scored one point
“The seven minutes Tye Wilburn played were big minutes for us,” Nagy said of the junior guard. “Most people aren’t going to under- stand that, but when we’re playing just seven guys, three off them freshmen, our coaching staff understands it.”
Like Mitchell, Wilburn’s playing t ime decreased when Gentry became eli- gible in December following his transfer from South Dakota State.
Prior to Thursday, Wil- burn had played a total of one minute in the seven games since Gentry entered the mix.
Now with Mitchell away indefinitely, Wilburn is going to be counted on more, starting today when he could find himself matched at times against one of the best guards in the league. And Nagy said he won’t hesitate to use him.
“We for sure need him,” Nagy said. “The thing I’m most of proud of is he went several games where he didn’t play at all. But he just came to practice every day, he keeps working hard, he keeps doing whatever you ask him to do.
“Had he gotten discouraged when Cole came in and he didn’t play at all, then it would be hard for us to play him now because his mind wouldn’t be right,” Nagy continued. “But he kept his mind right and now he’s getting this opportunity and he’ll make the most of it.”
And Nagy is hoping the Raiders, who have won six in a row, also make the most of their only chance to play at home in a stretch of 20 days and six games.
“To win championships, you have to be really good on the road and then you need to take care of your home games,” Nagy said.
‘I voted him for league MVP; I think he’s that good.’
WSU coach Scott Nagy On Cameron Morse