Horizon Notebook: If Wright State Manages to Recruit Some Players, Look Out

DAYTON, OHIO -   They defended so well the night before New Year’s Eve against Cleveland State that I couldn’t wait for my next chance to see them play;  that came last night in the Nutter Center in their conference game hosting Illinois-Chicago.  Not surprisingly, before the game I learned from former Raider star and current radio analyst Bob Grote that preseason All-Conference selection Vaughn Duggins, out with a broken finger since early December, would not return this year, and likely be a medical redshirt.  What was surprising was that Grote also told me that oft-injured junior guard John David Gardner strained his right hip in Thursday night’s win over Loyola, and might not play against UIC.  As it turned out, Gardner gutted out a start, limped through the first seven minutes, and never returned.  Yet somehow, no matter who was or wasn’t on the floor, WSU’s defense continued to improve, and without their two best players the Raiders dominated UIC, holding the Flames to 31 points in a 57-31 blowout, just 13 in the first half on 6-20 shooting.  And those 31 points allowed were, for the second time this year, the fewest allowed in the history of the Raider program.  (On December 9th the Raiders held Toledo to 35 points;  the low before that was the 37 Wright State held Ohio Northern to in 1974-75).

In holding UIC to 31, Coach Brownell’s forward line collectively held UIC 7 foot center Scott Vandemeer to 10 points, just 2 in the game’s final 28 minutes.  Even more impressive, Brownell’s guards, principally 6-3 senior Will Graham, held UIC’s prolific scoring guard Josh Mayo to 6 points on two treys, 11 points under his season average.  And oh yes, while this win was all about defense, and precious little offense was needed, Todd Brown, a 6-5 junior guard from Canton-McKinley High School, had the best offensive night of any Raider this season, scoring 23 of WSU’s 57 points, on 9-18 shooting, including 4-9 from the arc.

Having played for former Indiana assistant Royce Waltman at DePauw, coached under another former Knight assistant Jim Crews at Evansville, then coached under Waltman at the University of Indianapolis, Brad Brownell is very much a member of the Bob Knight coaching family tree.  And he has learned his man-to-man defense well.  When we wrote about Brownell’s Raiders after the win over Cleveland State, we compared the defense they play to that played by the Hoosiers in the late 70s and 80s, an era in which Indiana staffs spent more time drilling defense than they did later, a time when defense was still more important than motion offense.  As we’ve written here before, more like Butler’s defense than Cleveland State’s, Wright State’s man-to-man does not apply pressure all-over the court, plays from the arc to the basket (against some opponents a step closer than the arc), the guards are sound individually, keep their men in front of them, and when required the help angles and rotations are absolutely sound.

After the game I compared the defense with Indiana’s 25 or 30 years ago.  Coach responded that “that’s high praise.  We don’t always play as if we’re trapped in a bunker (implying that they often do).”  When I asked how the defense stays so good without his two best players, Coach responded this way:  “Duggins and Gardner are without question my toughest kids, and toughness is a talent.  Without them, well, the defense isn’t nearly as tough, as aggressive, but it remains fundamentally sound.  Tonight the kids dug in and played as good a 40-minutes of defense as we’ve done yet.”

Having attended Youngstown State’s home upset of Cleveland State just 24 hours earlier, the disparity in personnel in the league was on my mind, so I broached recruiting with Brownell.  Introducing the topic, I pointed out that Gardner was really Coach’s recruit at UNC-Wilmington (and he merely followed his coach to Ohio), and pointed out that he hasn’t exactly brought in the likes of Matt Howard, Gordon Hayward and Shelvin Mack at Butler, Josh Mayo at UIC or J’Nathan Bullock, Trey Harmon or Aaron Pogue at Cleveland State, Pogue being from Dayton.  Brownell acknowledged that he has yet to break through in his recruiting, pointing out all of the schools he’s recruiting against in-state, many with better basketball tradition and prettier campuses.  “Most of the MAC is here in Ohio, and that includes the MAC’s best programs.  And in our own city Dayton [of the Atlantic-10] has much more visibility.  We just have to keep improving, building our program, defending, and eventually the kids will come.”  Given how this group guards, look out for the Raiders once they get players as good as those at Dayton, Xavier, Miami, Kent, Akron and Cleveland State (never mind Ohio State and Cincinnati).

Finally, since we were talking about recruiting, and also about Indiana under Bob Knight, I asked Coach Brownell what he thought about an old statement about Knight, half compliment, half criticism, one I still don’t believe:  that Knight purposely didn’t recruit the best athletes in America, preferring to beat you with lesser players playing better defense.  Well, Brownell smiled, agreed that he didn’t believe the statement either, and repeated that “we’re doing our best to get kids who can apply more pressure, not play as passively, disrupt our opponents some, and perhaps even get a steal or two.”

On the other side of the coin, Jimmy Collins’ UIC team had wilted against WSU’s man-to-man defense, and Coach Collins was frustrated with his group.  “Wright State is a good team, and we quit.  UIC’s kids are individuals rather than a team right now, and we quit.  No one helps Mayo when he’s triple teamed, no one sets the picks they’re supposed to set, preferring to post up themselves and ask for the ball.  Our team is now selfish to a fault.  And we didn’t play hard, smart or together.”  That’s what Wright State’s defense can do to a team.

Finally, I think back to the non-conference season, when teams hadn’t figured out how to stop Mayo, and UIC had monster road wins at Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech.  At the same time Wright State was losing at Wake Forest (though playing them even in the second half).  Now it’s a month or six-weeks later, Wright State is without either of its two best and toughest players, and it is the Raider defense that dominated UIC, causing them to quit.  Who knows what could happen if Brownell were ever able to bring big-time recruits into his program.

Horizon News and Notes:

• At the halfway point of its conference schedule, Wright State is a respectable 6-3.  Green Bay having fallen to Butler on Thursday, Milwaukee to both Butler and Valpo this weekend, and Cleveland State in its only game at Youngstown, fourth place WSU is now just one game behind 7-2 Green Bay for the coveted second spot in the conference, is even in losses and just half a game behind 7-3 Milwaukee, and is two full games ahead of 4-5 CSU.  And in the second half of its schedule, WSU has three of those four-Butler, Green Bay and Milwaukee-coming into the Nutter Center.
• The second half of Wright State’s schedule begins as the first half did, on the road, with games this week at Youngstown State on Thursday and at Cleveland State on Saturday.  And as the Vikings found out on Friday night, YSU can be pretty darned tough at home.  This writer will get to see WSU again on Saturday night in Cleveland, and then at home against Butler a week later on February 7th.  .