Milwaukee

[Big D]

If you would have told me in advance that we wouldn't make a 3 pointer tonight and score under 60 points, I wouldn't have given us a chance. Great defense tonight and a great win. That is 2 games in a row that WSU has played a pretty complete game. We need to keep that momentum for UWGB.

[Raider Country]

We had a great crowd tonight. I bet we had 6-7,000. Not bad for a Thursday night game.

[Big D]

I was disappointed in the size of tonight's crowd. We were playing the top team in the conference and we had a ticket give away for the game. It's sad we cannot attract 7-8K for a free game vs a team that went to the sweet 16 a year ago.

[raider fan]

I loved the balance scoring & rebounding.

Drew 17 - 7
Deshaun 17
Jordan 11 - 8
Wilson 10 - 9

We "only" had 12 TO for the game and against a team like UWM that is a huge accomplishment. Considering we only had 4 against YSU I hope it means we are seeing a trend.

I hope we come out against GB and play with passion! Sat. is big game!

[Dayton Daily News]

WSU NOTES

Wilson's extra effort pays off
By Marc Katz

Dayton Daily News

FAIRBORN | Sophomore forward Scottie Wilson didn't like the looks of his free-throw percentage (.583 on 21-of-36), so he worked extra hard on that part of his game in practice.

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It certainly paid off Thursday night against Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Wilson made all eight of his free throws, scored 10 points in all and grabbed nine rebounds.

"I've been struggling with my free throws," Wilson said. "I've been working extra hard on them."

Coach Paul Biancardi certainly liked what he saw. "It was an excellent performance we really needed," Biancardi said.

•Milwaukee coach Rob Jeter was certainly unhappy with his team's shooting. The Panthers made only 35.2 percent of their shots from the field and just 11-of-20 attempts (55 percent) from the free-throw line.

"Thirty-five percent is not going to get it done," Jeter said. "We just missed shots. We put ourselves in a hole. My guys battled. They just came up short. Every time they (the Raiders) needed a big rebound, they got it."

Wright State outrebounded the Panthers 35-34 even though UWM grabbed 17 offensive boards. Those 17, however, resulted in just 14 points.

In addition to Wilson's nine rebounds, Jordan Pleiman had eight (and 11 points) and Drew Burleson pulled down seven.

•In a streaky season, the Raiders won their second straight coming off a four-game losing streak. Just before the losing streak, they had won four straight.

Next up is Wisonsin-Green Bay on Saturday, a team to which the Raiders lost by virtue of a late fold on the road two weeks ago. That game came two days after the same thing happened at Milwaukee and four days before it happened again at home against Illinois-Chicago.

•Horizon League commissioner and Vandalia native Jon LeCrone not only visited the Nutter Center, he arrived in Dayton early to visit with his former coaches at Vandalia Butler High School. LeCrone met at a Vandalia restaurant with former Butler basketball coach Ray Zawadzki and former football coach Jack Hollon as well as with several former classmates.

"We had a great time telling stories," said LeCrone, who played both sports as well as baseball.

•Former WSU player Dave Dinn (1987-91) was the analyst with radio voice Chris Collins the last two games. Dinn lives in northern Kentucky and works in Cincinnati in financial planning. Another former player, Mark Starkey, who works in town, made his first game since graduating two years ago when he took in the Youngstown State contest on Monday. Starkey is from Youngstown.

Contact Marc Katz at 225-2157.

Find this article at:
www.daytondailynews.com/sports/content/sports/wsu/daily/0203wsunotes.html

[Dayton Daily News]

Wright State finishes off Milwaukee
Burleson makes big plays down the stretch in Raiders' 59-54 win over league leader
By Marc Katz

[e-mail]

FAIRBORN | Too many times earlier this season, Wright State held a lead and gave it away.

There were no presents at the Nutter Center on Thursday night. The Raiders held the lead to the end.

Drew Burleson converted a 3-point play, grabbed a rebound and fed DaShaun Wood for another basket in the final 1:31 as the Raiders toppled Horizon League-leading Wisconsin-Milwaukee 59-54, climbing to 6-4 in the league and even at 10-10 overall.

Two weeks ago, the Raiders were in a close game at Milwaukee, only to lose by seven with a final-minutes meltdown.

"It takes 40 minutes to beat these guys," said Burleson of WSU's first victory over UWM in 10 games. "That's probably one of the biggest things we've been struggling with."

Wright State seemingly broke open a close game, taking a 47-37 lead with 8:47 left, a danger-zone for the Raiders of late. Milwaukee knocked that lead down to 51-50 with 2:02 to play on a 3-point Chris Hill basket. From there, the Raiders didn't give up, and neither did the Fairborn Night crowd, said to be 6,595.

A half-minute later, Burleson put on his show.

"What a wonderful venue for college basketball," WSU coach Paul Biancardi said. "The fans really got us over the hump." It was only the second league loss for UWM, now 9-2 and 16-5 overall.

"Without question they're still the best team in the league," Biancardi said. "It was a great win for our program."

Contact Marc Katz at 225-2157.

Find this article at:
www.daytondailynews.com/sports/content/sports/wsu/daily/0203wsubb.html

[Silky Southpaw]

Big D, why are you complaining about the crowd? I bet if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have had this big win. The student section was great. The volume of it during crunch time was what we needed. I'm happy with 7,000 or so. Especially after that horrible, small, and pretty quiet crowd on Monday night.

[little D]

Big D would complain about a blow job. He prefers to take it back door in a penetration play.

[Big D]

Silky said:

Big D, why are you complaining about the crowd? I bet if it wasn't for them we wouldn't have had this big win. The student section was great. The volume of it during crunch time was what we needed. I'm happy with 7,000 or so. Especially after that horrible, small, and pretty quiet crowd on Monday night.

Re-read my post. I didn't complain about last night's crowd participation. In fact, I was very pleased with our student participation. I wish they would come out to games more often. I was disappointed in the SIZE of last night's crowd. Last night's announced attendance was 6,595. I have been going to games since we used to play at Stebbins HS. I was disappointed that we could only bring in 6,595 fans when we were playing the top team in the league and still in the hunt for a top 3 finish in the conference. I was even more disappointed that our program can only bring in 6.595 fans for an important game like that even when we give away tickets. If you were a fan of WSU in the early 1990s, you would know we used to bring in over 7,000 a game on average. We used to bring in 8-9,000 PAYING fans for games against the first place team in the conference. That is the reason for my displeasure.

[Wolf]

RAIDER CONNECTION

WSU has eye on bye for Horizon League tournament
By Marc Katz

Dayton Daily News

FAIRBORN | So the Raiders can play 40 minutes. That's what they proved Thursday night.

It was an effort that took a long time coming, especially in light of a recent four-game losing streak in which they held a second-half lead in each game, only to lose during complete collapses in the games' final minutes.

Beating Wisconsin-Milwaukee 59-54, though, does not mean the Raiders are in the race for the Horizon League championship. They certainly aren't going to be favored to win the title for the regular season, which has six games to go.

Milwaukee has only five games left in league play, the toughest coming Saturday at Butler. After that, the Panthers play Youngstown State, Cleveland State, Illinois-Chicago and Detroit — not exactly an array of top-echelon teams.

What the victory did more than anything is keep the Raiders in line for at least one home game in the Horizon League tournament, give them a chance at a bye and serve notice to Milwaukee that the Panthers can be beat.

It's probably worth going over the schedule for the nine-team tournament now, even though it won't begin until Feb. 28.

The third-place team receives a first-round bye, while the top two get passes through the first AND second rounds.

In the first round, six teams play, with the better seed hosting each game. In Round 2, the No. 3 team in the league — WSU at the moment — plays the winner of the No. 6 vs. No. 7 game. The No. 4/No. 9 winner plays the winner of No. 5/No. 8.

Round 3 has the No. 1 seed playing the remaining team in the top half of the draw, with the No. 2 team playing the winner of the bottom half. Rounds 2 and 3 will be played March 3-4 at the site of the No. 1 seed. The championship game will be held March 7 at the site of the better seed.

At the moment, Wright State resides in third place, a game behind Butler in the loss column, although Butler has played one fewer game overall. Behind the Raiders are four teams with six losses, so the team would have to go into total collapse mode to fall out of third place.

Of course, three of their five remaining league games are on the road, so nothing is certain.

It's just nice to know the Raiders have a chance, and after Saturday, they might even move up a notch. While Butler hosts Milwaukee, the Raiders host Green Bay, a team they have already lost to.

That was two weeks ago when the Raiders also lost at Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee end of that trip has already been avenged.
www.daytondailynews.com/sports/content/sports/wsu/daily/0203raiderconnection.html?cxntnid=rc-020306

[wsu97]

Little D having fun.

[observer]

wsu97, why do you always try to defend BigD? Are you really BigD in disguise?

Anyways, I agree with BigD to a point. The NC should have been packed with a Sweet 16 team coming into our den. Then again, I can understand that the UIC game probably turned a lot of people off.

[observer]

little said:

Big D would complain about a blow job. He prefers to take it back door in a penetration play.

That was funny as hell.

[wsu97]

observer said:

wsu97, why do you always try to defend BigD? Are you really BigD in disguise?

Big D is my father.