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Post by xraidermascot on Feb 22, 2007 22:50:28 GMT -5
Butler is losing
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Post by Willie on Feb 22, 2007 22:55:22 GMT -5
Youngstown St. 72, Wright St. 57 February 22, 2007 YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (AP) -- Quin Humphrey scored 35 points and had 11 rebounds to lead Youngstown State to a 72-57 win over Wright State on Thursday night. Humphrey shot 10-of-18 and made 11 of 12 free throws for the Penguins (13-15, 7-8 Horizon League). Wright State (21-9, 13-3) could have clinched at least a tie for the Horizon League title, but the loss gave Butler a chance to win the league championship outright. The Bulldogs needed to win Thursday night against Loyola of Chicago and Saturday against Detroit to win the conference outright. Wright State led 33-25 at halftime, but Youngstown State started the second period with a 9-0 run to take a 34-33 advantage on Byron Davis' dunk with 16:58 left. The two teams traded the lead before the Penguins went ahead for good on Humphrey's foul shot with 8:16 remaining. Keston Roberts added 19 points for Youngstown State, which shot 51 percent (23-of-45) overall and 62 percent in the second half. The Penguins outrebounded the Raiders 41-33. DaShaun Wood led Wright State with 15 points and Jordan Pleiman added 10 points. Both had five rebounds. The Raiders shot about 25 percent (14-of-55). sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/recap?gid=200702220685
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Post by Willie on Feb 22, 2007 22:57:17 GMT -5
We didn't play like a team fighting for a league title. Very disappointing.
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Post by xraidermascot on Feb 22, 2007 23:20:35 GMT -5
Thank goodness Butler lost
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Post by Admin on Feb 22, 2007 23:44:45 GMT -5
Surprisingly, our RPI did not take a big hit ... 31 Butler 12-3 23-5 84 Wright St. 13-3 21-9 90 Loyola (IL) 10-5 18-9 144 Youngstown St. 7-8 11-15 157 Wisc. Green Bay 7-8 14-13 173 Illinois-Chicago 6-9 11-17 197 Detroit 6-9 11-17 243 Wisc. Milwaukee 5-10 8-21 267 Cleveland St. 2-13 6-20 realtimerpi.com/rpi_horiz_Men.html
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Post by Admin on Feb 23, 2007 0:17:04 GMT -5
www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/college/wsu/2007/02/22/ddn022307wsubb.htmlYOUNGSTOWN STATE 72, WRIGHT STATE 57 WSU falters against Penguins Raiders go cold against Youngstown State, but WSU claims league title anyway. By Marc Katz Staff Writer Friday, February 23, 2007 YOUNGSTOWN — Wright State learned of its good fortune on a bus on the way back to Fairborn late Thursday night. After losing 72-57 to Youngstown State behind the 35 points from Quin Humphrey, the Raiders fell out of first place in the Horizon League and appeared to be headed to a second-place finish and a league tournament game at Butler in Indianapolis. Then Loyola (Chicago) beat Butler 75-71 and WSU became not only at least league co-champion, but will host the second round and semifinals as the top seed of the Horizon League tournament March 2-3. "Guys were watching the game on their cell phones," WSU coach Brad Brownell said. "It was a pretty somber bus ride for two hours. Then the guys got excited." Humphrey scored 29 of his points in the second half as the Penguins out-scored the Raiders 47-24 with a zone defense that kept WSU's shooting average to a season-low 25.5 percent. "It was in our hands and we let it go," said WSU's DaShaun Wood, who led the Raiders with 15 points but made only 3 of 14 shots. "We practiced the zone a lot. Today, we didn't handle it well." In a herky-jerky game dominated by fouls, the Raiders led 33-25 at the half mostly by making all 17 of their foul shots. "There was no good flow," WSU coach Brad Brownell said. "There were guys in foul trouble. There was a stop and start to everything. We tried to manage DaShaun with fouls; we tried to manage Vaughn (Duggins) with fouls; we tried to manage Jordan (Pleiman) with fouls; we tried to managed Scotty (Wilson) with fouls. "We were taking players out for offense and defense with nine minutes to go. Usually, we do that with 3-4 minutes." Wright State's last lead was 46-45 with 8:28 to go. Humphrey made two foul shots to give the Penguins the lead and Keston Roberts scored from the right of the lane for a 49-46 YSU lead. Vaughn Duggins' 3-point basket with 5:11 left brought the Raiders to the brink, trailing 54-52, but it was the Raiders' last hurrah, ending their nine-game winning streak, leaving them 13-3 in conference play at 21-9 overall. Youngstown State is 7-8 and 13-15. Contact this reporter at 937-225-2157 or mkatz@DaytonDailyNews.com. Next Game Who: Wright State vs. TBA When: March 3. What: Horizon League Tournament semifinal. Where: Nutter Center.
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Post by raiderrunt on Feb 23, 2007 5:38:18 GMT -5
Tom Archdeacon: Good news travels fast for Raiders Click-2-Listen By Tom Archdeacon Friday, February 23, 2007 YOUNGSTOWN — The mood changed instantly. The Wright State Raiders — numbed by their 72-57 loss to Youngstown State Thursday night — were limping home through the darkness along Interstate 71 some 80 miles out of Columbus when the text messages on their phones flashed an even more important score. Although it finished with the same 13-3 league record as Butler, WSU held the tie-breaker — it had beaten third-place Loyola twice — and that meant the Raiders now were on top of the Horizon League world. WSU had won its first league crown in the history of the school, the postseason tournament now will be played at the Nutter Center and the team — at worst — will be assured an NIT bid. That perk goes to any team that wins its regular-season league. "As soon as the Butler game ended, a lot of us got phone calls," Wright State coach Brad Brownell said by cell from the team bus. "And right now guys are hugging each other, they're cheering and feeling so proud. I can't tell you. ..." Suddenly his voice was drowned out by another eruption of cheers. "Hey guys ... sshhhhh," he yelled in vain. Finally he gave up and returned to the phone. "What can I say? The guys are excited. Now it's hit them again just what they've done this year." Earlier they hadn't been able to see that. On a blowing, snowy night against a team called the Penguins, they had gone ice cold. They made just 25.5 percent of their shots from the floor and were a miserable 12.5 percent in 3-pointers. It was the first time the Raiders had stumbled in more than a month. They came into Youngstown State on a nine-game winning steak that began with a 14-point trouncing of this same Penguins team at the Nutter Center. So the change in venue had some effect? It was Brownell's first time in Youngstown — lucky him — and he had to admit: "I didn't like it very much. It wasn't very fun." He wasn't talking about the town, just what happened to his team. The Raiders were done in by the Penguins' game-long zone defense, their own misfires and likely some nerves. "It was the first time our guys got a little antsy and showed a little distress and lack of poise," Brownell admitted. "I think our guys did press, but you've got to give credit to Youngstown, too, They have some fantastic players. And we just never got untracked. It just wasn't a typical night for us." He described it as a "start-stop, herky-jerky" night. That's what happens when 52 personal fouls and two technicals are whistled on the two teams and coaches are constantly subbing to protect players from fouling out. Yet, even before he got the news of Butler's demise, Brownell wasn't letting his overachieving team lose sight of what it had accomplished. "It was a bad 20 minutes (Thursday), but I'm not going to let 20 minutes take away from the great play of these kids over the past two months. You're selling these kids short, you're selling yourself short, if you let one half define this season." In the darkness some 80 miles from Columbus, his players knew just what he meant. www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/college/wsu/2007/02/23/ddn022307arch2.html
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Post by raiderrunt on Feb 23, 2007 6:11:32 GMT -5
Anyone who does not receieve this should sign up to receive this e-mail article that Katz writes about once or twice a week. www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/college/wsu/2007/02/23/ddn022307raiderconnection.html?cxntnid=rc-022307'Bad 20 minutes' won't dominate season By Marc Katz Dayton Daily News Friday, February 23, 2007 YOUNGSTOWN — Sure the Raiders were disappointed Thursday night. For at least two hours after they lost 72-57 to Youngstown State. Then, on the bus home, they learned Loyola (Chicago) had beaten Butler 75-71 in Indianapolis. Here's what that changed: It made WSU the regular-season Horizon League champion and No. 1 seed in the league tournament and a host for that tournament because of tiebreakers. It also puts WSU in the postseason for the first time since 1993 when the Raiders made the NCAA tournament. Even if WSU does not win the Horizon League tournament championship and the resulting NCAA bid, the 32-NIT team field must take all regular-season champions that do not qualify for the NCAA. Without Loyola's victory, the Raiders would have finished second had Butler beaten Detroit on Saturday. "It's like I said before, we didn't want to let a bad 20 minutes in the second half against Youngstown ruin our season," WSU coach Brad Brownell said. All they had to do was beat a sub-.500 team to win a regular-season league championship. They entered the game with a nine-game winning streak. They were the hottest team in the Horizon League. They had an eight-game streak over Youngstown State. Then they began shooting like they were launching scud missiles, those weapons no one was ever sure where they'd land. Wright State tried to shoot over a zone that placed three players on the baseline and two out front. A 28.0 shooting percentage in the first half got worse in the second, falling to 23.3 percent. "We had a couple tough plays we didn't finish," Brownell said. "Their zone bothered us a little bit. Our perimeter players did not do a good enough job, did not attack the zone. "We got a little impatient and didn't take good shots. Most of the time we've faced zone, we've knocked shots down. We had some decent looks." It looked bleak, and then, Loyola. Players on the bus were watching on their cell phones. They received calls from relatives and friends. The reason they take the No. 1 seed is because they can finish in no worse than a tie with Butler. Since the two teams split their season series, they go to the next tiebreaker, which is the record against the next team in the league, which is Loyola. Wright State beat Loyola twice. Butler beat the Ramblers only once. "We shouldn't let 20 bad minutes dominate our season," Brownell said. Now, it won't.
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Post by wsu97 on Feb 23, 2007 7:01:35 GMT -5
Scouting report doesn't pan outBy Marc Katz Staff Writer Friday, February 23, 2007 YOUNGSTOWN — A scouting-report quote stated the pre-game mission, but not all of it was deployed Thursday night at the Beeghly Center. "Forty minutes, champions for life," was the quote assistant Wright State coach Billy Donlon typed onto the report. It was a reference to the Raiders playing 40 minutes of basketball and winning at least a share of the Horizon League championship. But Youngstown State dominated the second half on the way to a 72-57 victory. It looked like the loss would assure WSU a second-place finish in the league, a No. 2 seed in the league tournament and a semifinal game at Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on March 3. Then Loyola beat Butler, making WSU at least HL co-champ and, by virtue of tiebreakers, the No. 1 seed in the league tourney. Scoring race close Senior guard DaShaun Wood, a leading candidate for HL Player of the Year, is in danger of losing the league scoring title. His 15 points gives him 313 for 16 league games, while Quin Humphrey's 35 gives him 307 for Cleveland State with one more home game to play Saturday. Danger zone "Youngstown is a dangerous team," WSU senior forward Drew Burleson said. "They have good players. We've had a good season so far. I'm not going to say this took away from everything, but this was extremely disappointing to have everything right there and not get it." Honors college Because it was Senior Night and Youngstown State wanted to honor its seniors before the game, Wright State stayed in its locker room, even missing the national anthem. YSU honored not only senior players Keston Roberts and Humphrey, but senior dance team members and cheerleaders as well. Hoop dreams The Raiders have now gone where no WSU team has been before. For the first 16 of their 36 years with a basketball team, the school was a Division II independent. For the last 20 years, WSU has been in D-I and in a league for 16 of those years. The team earned at least a piece of its first regular-season championship after playing three years in the old Mid-Continent Conference and since 1994-95 in the Horizon League, which began as the Midwestern Collegiate Conference. A better ending The two movies the Raiders watched on the bus to Youngstown on Wednesday were The Departed and School for Scoundrels, which wasn't quite finished when the bus pulled into the motel parking lot. Most of the team stayed on the bus to watch the final five minutes. Nutter letdown At the Nutter Center, nearly 50 people showed up to watch the game on a JumboTron. "The second half was (bad). The first half was good though," said Lee Mowen, a WSU freshman. Spirits were broken and seats smacked in exasperation after Humphrey's four-point play with three minutes left. "They just couldn't hit anything tonight," said Nutter Center security officer Don Ashby. "We feel bad, but imagine how (the players) feel right now." www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/college/wsu/2007/02/23/ddn022307wsunotes.html
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Post by Admin on Feb 23, 2007 22:41:14 GMT -5
www.tribune-chronicle.com/Sports/articles.asp?articleID=14941Penguins stuff Wright State By JOHN VARGO Tribune Chronicle YOUNGSTOWN — Quin Humphrey may have solidified his bid for Horizon League’s Most Valuable Player. On Thursday’s senior night at Beeghly Center, the 6-foot-4 Youngstown State senior two-guard drained 35 points to lead the Penguins over the league’s best team — Wright State, 72-57. It was an emotional night for the player from Ellenwood, Ga. — a suburb of Atlanta. YSU coach Jerry Slocum, whose team is 13-15, 7-15, greeted Humphrey prior to the game as he and Keston Roberts were honored. ‘‘He’s MVP in my heart. I love that kid, not because he put the numbers up,’’ Slocum said. ‘‘He told me before the game, ‘I’m not crying.’ And when he got to me, there were tears running down his face. He’s my MVP. There’s a bunch of guys in this conference that deserve and had outstanding years. He is clearly deserving.’’ Humphrey needs seven points Saturday at Cleveland State (tipoff at 5:30) to win the league scoring title. He averaged 18.9 points per game heading into Thursday’s contest and 32 points in the last four home games where the Penguins have went 4-0. In addition, Slocum earned his 600th career victory. ‘‘It’s special because he helped me on my game a lot and I was able to give him his 600th win,’’ Humphrey said. None of these accolades would’ve been possible without YSU’s strong suit — its defense. They held the league’s leading scorer, DaShaun Wood to 15 points. He averages just shy of 20 per game. Wright State’s Jordan Pleiman added 10. ‘‘We played a lot of defense on (Wood) tonight. We were playing a lot of zone so he couldn’t do a lot of one-on-one. That really bothered him a lot,’’ said Roberts, who scored 19 points. ‘‘We did a good job in containing Wood. He’s one of the best players in this league, in my opinion,’’ Humphrey said. But the first half didn’t indicate YSU would be successful, trailing 33-25. The Penguins, who shot 50 percent for the game, did shoot 42 percent prior to intermission. They were 5-of-8 from the foul line, while Wright State was a gaudy 17-of-17. ‘‘As good as we’ve been a second-half basketball team, I thought if we could get into halftime — within seven, eight points — that we’re going to be OK,’’ Slocum said. YSU overtook Wright State with 7:35 left on a pair of free throws by Humphrey. Wright State’s offense and defense faltered in the second half. The Raiders (21-9, 13-3) shot 23 percent from the field and 9-of-18 at the line. It seemed ironic that handful of YSU students were chanting to most Wright State foul shooters, ‘‘No, you’re not going to make it. You’re not going to make it anymore,’’ which is from the early ’80s hit from Twisted Sister ‘‘We’re not going to take it anymore.’’ But Humphrey took it all in, including the emotional outbursts, as his family traveled from North Carolina and Georgia to Youngstown. ‘‘Now you’re going to make me cry again,’’ he said.
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Post by Raider Country on Feb 24, 2007 8:43:28 GMT -5
Raiders OK with the way they earned titleBy Marc Katz Staff Writer Saturday, February 24, 2007 FAIRBORN — Two bus rides a year apart could not be any different for the Wright State basketball team. A loss on the final day of the regular season in 2006 led to the Raiders finding out on their way home from Chicago they would have to return to that city two days later to play in a first-round Horizon League tournament game instead of playing at home. They did, then lost, and their season was finished. Thursday, a 72-57 loss at Youngstown State appeared devastating until the players began paying attention to the score running across their cell phones during another bus ride home. "Drew (Burleson) and I were watching every bit of it (Loyola at Butler) on our cell phones, and the other guys were gathering around," senior DaShaun Wood said. "There were like 40 seconds left, and Loyola was up by three, then all our phones messed up. We were like, 'What happened?' And (assistant) coach (Billy) Donlon said the game was over (with Loyola winning), and that's when people started screaming and acting crazy." That Butler loss gave WSU at least a tie for the regular-season championship. The Raiders also earned the No. 1 seed and home-court advantage in the league tournament and an automatic bid to the postseason — in the NCAA if the Raiders win the HL tournament or the NIT if they don't and the NCAA doesn't invite them as an at-large team. "You've got to play every game in this league," Wood said to several interviewers at the Setzer Pavilion on Friday. "You can't take any night off. We didn't need anybody to lose, anybody to win, any of that. All we needed was to win, and we'd win the regular-season Horizon League championship. And we fell short of that. "Fortunately, (Loyola) was about to win, and it happened for us." Asked if there was any shame in winning a championship while losing, Wood said no. "No, not at all," Wood said. "It's done. We're champions. You can't take that away from us. Once a champion, always a champion. We let some things slip through our fingers. I guess you could say Butler let it slip through their fingers, too. "We worked very hard to get here, and we're happy with it. No matter how you get it, it's got." Even before the Raiders found out about the Butler loss, WSU coach Brad Brownell consoled his players about the second-half meltdown at YSU. "This is not indicative of the way we've played," Brownell told his team. "You can't let 20 minutes erase all that. It's not going to make you feel a lot better right now, but when you're older, there are some things you can be proud of." And, a championship is one of those things. www.daytondailynews.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/college/wsu/2007/02/24/ddn022407wsubb.html
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