He’d held the 6-foot-8 senior — who came into the game averaging 17.9 points and 6.5 rebounds — to eight points and three rebounds, both season lows.
Near the end of the game, the Nutter Center public address man announced Noel as the player of the game.
Afterward, Scott Nagy, Wright State’s head coach, opened his comments to the media with “Brandon played great.”
Now, all that was left for Noel was to head back to courtside, where his mom, Melinda, and his Aunt Ruthie, regulars at every game, waited for him, as did another aunt and uncle and a cousin.
“My mom’s really invested into who I am as a player, so she’ll always make comments,” he said with a nod, then a smile. “There’s a good supporting cast with her too, and they aren’t always too nice to me all the time. They don’t just feed me with ‘Good job! Good job!’
“They’re trying to make me better and I appreciate that.” But on this night – after one of the best outings of his career at WSU – how could there be anything but a pat on the back?
Noel started to laugh: “Oh my mom will see…something.”
That’s because Melinda Noel not only is deeply bonded with her only child, whom she raised as a single parent, but she also knows the game of basketball.
She was once a hoops standout herself, scoring close to 1,100 points at Lucasville Valley High School in the early 1980s and getting All-Ohio recognition, before going to play at Walsh College in Canton.
She taught the game to her son and often did it with a hands-on approach.
They had a hoop set up next to the concrete driveway on the 20-acre farm they initially lived on outside of Lucasville and she once told me how she’d tell Brandon he had to make 100 shots before they could go inside.
Sometimes he’ try to barter and suggest 50, saying that would be good enough.
But she was adamant and wouldn’t bend.
“All the arguments we ever had were on the basketball court,” she’d told me with a laugh. “He’s stubborn and so am I.”
As he grew up, Noel wanted to match his mom when it came to basketball accomplishment. He also played at Lucasville Valley and then at Chillicothe High when they moved there.
He said in his last high school game he managed to surpass his mom’s career scoring mark and finished with 1,116 points.
Although he won All-Ohio Division I first team honors, he said the only D-I college offer he got came from Wrigh State. And that’s only after Steven Ater, who had coached Raiders’ star Tanner Holden at Wheelersburg High, lobbied for him with WSU associate head coach Cliff Sargent.
After redshirting two straight seasons – one after an ACL tear, the other because he was going to get limited playing time – Noel debuted last year. He averaged 13 points and 8.7 rebounds a game and shot 60.9 percent from the floor. That led the Horizon League and was No. 19 in the nation.
He ended up the Horizon League Freshman of the Year.
This year he was a preseason All-Horizon League first team pick and currently is averaging 13.9 points per game and a team-leading 7.4 rebounds,
He’s especially come on of late, averaging 18.9 points and 10 rebounds a game over the past four games.
So back in 2020 were the Raiders coaches clairvoyant when it came to Noel?
How did they see what no other D-I coaches did back then?
“We kind of pride ourselves in finding people that other people (overlook)” Nagy said. “Loudon (Love) was that way, too.
“Nobody recruited Loudon. They all thought he was going to play football.”
Like Noel, Love redshirted when he first got to WSU, but that was so he’d lose weight and continue morphing from a football standout into a hoops talent.
Love ended up one of the greatest Raiders players ever, scoring 1,772 points and grabbing 1,124 rebounds in his career. Twice, he was named the Horizon League Player of the Year.
Nagy often makes a Love reference when he’s talking about Noel and his potential.
“You’ve got to be careful when you use the word… freak,” Nagy said a bit cautiously. “But you see it. The guy is as athletic as they come.
He’s 6-foot-8, 235.
“He took on Enaruna tonight and did a nice job on him. He’s a tremendous defender. He can guard anybody. He led the league in rebounding last year and field goal percentage.
“He started a little slow this season (after dealing with mononucleosis and a bone bruise before the season) but he’s coming on. He’s close to putting together double doubles almost every game now.
“I kind of called him out in film the other day. I looked at him and said, ‘Everybody in here understands how good you are.’ The only thing holding him back is Brandon.
“He’s a talented dude. If he starts viewing himself that way, he’s gonna be…:
Nagy didn’t finish the thought, his imagination briefly overwhelming his vocal cords.
“There’s nothing you can do with him physically. There just isn’t anything you can do,” the coach finally said. “He’s quick. He jumps out of the gym and he’s super strong.
“And he shoots the ball. I mean, what? He made two threes tonight?
“‘There’s just a ton he can do. And he’s a great kid. A straight A student.” Once again Nagy quieted and this time, he gave voice to his imagination:
“I almost wish he was a worse kid…I want him to be a little more…dirty.”
As the coach laughed at the thought, Noel was already with his mom out by the court.
Actually, he may have prepped for these postgame sessions when he went back home over the holiday break.
He said he gave his mom and his Aunt Ruthie a YETI cooler for Christmas. And YETI glasses, as well:
“I wanted to give back to them for all those years and everything they’ve done for me.”
There may have been another message with the YETI stuff, as well.
He may have been saying: “Chill out!”
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