Using those parameters — and throwing in a box score splash every now and then — Andrew Welage is a player like no other at Wright State.
Nine months ago, the 6-foot-6 guard was, in his words, “done with basketball.”
After last season, his fourth in a WSU uniform — he told the Raiders’ coaches; as well as his teammate buddies and longtime roommates Brandon Noel and Alex Huibregtse; and his parents back in Indiana, that he was ready to move on in life.
He was graduating in the spring with a degree in Organizational Leadership and hoped to find a managerial job.
“I had had enough and at that point in time I was ready for it to be over,” he said. “And a month and a half after I’d made the decision, I still was fine with it. I had no issues.”
He’d played in 117 games for the Raiders and had had some great highs and also some tough lows.
There had been that fairy-tale night in mid-November last season when he returned to Indiana — to Assembly Hall, no less — to play against the IU Hoosiers.
He had grown up in Greenburg, Ind., 90 minutes from the Indiana campus. His parents had graduated from IU and he had friends from home who went to school there and rivals from the basketball world who played there.
WSU coaches gave him a rare opportunity that night. As the rest of the Raiders were taking their lumps, he came off the bench and had a performance for the ages. He played 33 minutes, made 7 of his 10 three-point attempts and finished with 25 points.
It was the best night of his college career.
There were other breakout games along the way. A month later he hit five treys and finished with 17 points against Muskingum. The season before that he scored 19 and had four steals against Milwaukee.
And when the Raiders made the NCAA Tournament in 2022, he scored six points and added three rebounds and three assists in 14 minutes to help the WSU get its first-ever Division I win tourney win over Bryant.
But there also were nights where he barely played and games where he did not score. As last season wound down, his minutes dwindled.
Although he finished the year as the team’s most accurate three-point shooter, making 45.2 percent of his beyond-the-arc attempts (28 of 51), he averaged just 6.6 minutes per game over the last nine games and scored a total of 14 points.
In the season’s very last game — against Northern Kentucky — he played three minutes and did not score.
After some internal debate, he decided he didn’t want to go through that again.
In the meantime, Wright State went through a coaching change. Scott Nagy left for Southern Illinois and associate head coach Clint Sargent took over the program.
As the Raiders worked the transfer portal, they eventually realized they weren’t going to find someone who could shoot like Welage and fit so seamlessly into the fabric of the team.
“Clint Sargent was the first one to call me,” Welage said. “He called multiple times and said, ‘We want you back.’
“I ended up getting a couple of calls from every single coach and I just felt they really wanted me.”
As Sargent explained the decision the other night:
“In terms of someone in the locker room who has some basketball wisdom, someone who’s been through the wars and been of every side of the game here, he’s a great teammate.
“With the journey he’s been on in his career, he has a lot of valuable insight that the other guys can lean on and he has a real chemistry with the older guys. There were just so many positives.
“And his shooting ability is hard to find.”
Welage talked to his parents again and said, just as they had supported his decision to leave, they were behind him if he decided to return:
“They said, ‘You could end it on a good note.’”
But to do that he said he had some work to do: “I hadn’t touched a ball or worked out on a couple of months,” he said.
“I saw all the hard work he put in the summer and in the quiet hours of the fall to get himself in better shape,” Sargent said.
But now, three months into this 11-11 season, that good note concept has mostly produced muted music on the court for Welage.
He has had three double-digit scoring efforts — 14 points against Robert Morris; 11 versus Purdue Fort Wayne; 12 against Oakland — but there have been nine games where he hasn’t scored.
Last Saturday he played just under 11 ½ minutes against Detroit Mercy, made 1 of 4 three-point attempts and a free throw for four points along with three rebounds and two assists.
After an autograph session with the team, he sat down to share his thoughts before returning to the apartment he shares with Noel, Huibregtse and this year Keaton Norris, as well. Those three had each started and scored in double figures against the Titans.
“When we come back from the games and talk, I put in my thoughts, but I don’t get the full feeling of it like they do and that kind of sucks,” he said.
“I thought I might come back this year and start and play considerable minutes, but it hasn’t worked out like that.
“I’ve had to change my mindset. When I get in, I want to be the best I can be — I still trust my shot — but when I’m not playing I just try to be the best teammate I can be.”
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
Credit: Joseph R. Craven
Hoops family
Welage comes from a basketball family. His dad played at Hanover College for a couple of seasons and his brother Ryan played three years at San Jose State and one at Xavier and ended his career with 1,494 points.
Andrew became a 1,000 point scorer his junior season in high school — he shot 52 percent from three-point range — and averaged 21.3 ppg as a senior and won all-state honors.
He had scholarship offers from Nevada, Vermont and Wright State and chose the Raiders because they were close to home so his family could regularly see him play and because he said he liked the system.
At the start, he, Noel and Huibregtse shared dorm quarters and then moved into a place of their own off campus.
“Us three have been best friends through this all,” Huibregtse said. “We’ve been together five years. The way things are now in college, not a lot of schools can say that.”
Welage said off the court they do everything together:
“We go to Roosters every Monday night and we go to B-Dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings) a lot, too. Other times it’s pizza. We have a great relationship.”
Huibregtse did offer a qualifier though: “He is kind of messy.”
Welage didn’t argue: “I am the messiest.”
Team first
They might have to pick up after him at the apartment, but not around the team.
He doesn’t litter the locker room with division or negativity.
“The last thing our team needs — especially this season — is for a guy to sit in the locker room pouting about his playing time or complaining about how his last year is going,” he said. “That doesn’t do nothing for nobody.”
No one appreciates that more than Sargent.
“I had talked to him about getting one more year with his teammates and how there was a greater chance he could regret not taking that opportunity than not going onto the work world. The jobs will always be there waiting for him.
“He had a lot to offer us, and he has. And that’s why, by my thinking, this has been a success.
“He’s always engaged and wants what’s best for the team. When Andrew speaks, he has opinions, and I generally agree with him. He has a very good sense of right and wrong. He can see what we need to be doing and what we need to stop doing and he’ll call us out on that.
“I absolutely appreciate that out of him.
“I’m incredibly thankful we have him because I always know one thing:
“He’s going to speak an honest word.”
And that, too, is the measure of a man.
About the Author