He keeps his focus on trying to make his team better and preparing for the next opponent. Everything else is a distraction.
“It may shock you, but I haven’t paid a lot of attention to it,” he said when asked how the league is shaping up. “Somebody had to even tell me that Oakland played at Dayton the other night.
“I have a general idea of how some teams are playing. But once you get into the league, none of it matters anyway.”
When a reporter gave him a pop quiz about the preseason poll, he didn’t fare too well.
Asked where the Raiders were projected to finish, he correctly answered, “I think we were picked third.”
He also was able to recall that Northern Kentucky was the preseason favorite. But he was lost when asked who was picked second.
“Cleveland State?” he asked.
That would have gotten a game-show buzzer.
It was Milwaukee.
“It doesn’t really matter who people think are good. All of the games are hard because nobody’s afraid of anybody,” Nagy said.
League teams have a 57-64 record against non-conference foes. The Horizon is ranked 20th out of 32 leagues in RPI ratings.
Purdue Fort Wayne, Youngstown State and NKU are all 2-0 in the league, while Wright State is 1-0.
YSU won the league last year with a 15-5 record, while Milwaukee, Cleveland State and NKU tied for second at 14-6.
The Raiders had their worst season under Nagy after their top two scorers transferred in the offseason, finishing eighth at 10-10.
They’re 6-6 and have a middling NET rating of 153. But they’ve won three regular-season titles and two tourney crowns under Nagy, and they’re expected to be in the mix again this year.
Surprise team: Picked eighth in the preseason poll, Purdue Fort Wayne probably acquired the most offseason help and is 11-2.
The Mastodons beat DePaul by on road, 82-74. They won the Arizona tipoff tourney by knocking off Northern Arizona and South Dakota.
Their only losses were at Pitt and San Francisco, and they have a league-best NET rating of 85.
PFW transfers have the 10th- and 12th-best scoring averages in the league: Rasheed Bello (Wisconsin-Parkside) is at 14.7 per game and Jalen Jackson (UIC) 14.3.
Corey Hadnot II won the first three HL freshman of the week honors.
Wrong direction: Milwaukee, which was expected to keep rising after going 22-12 last season, is 5-7 with a dreary NET rating of 315.
Standout guard Markeith Browning II was dismissed from the team after 11 games. He was second in minutes played (28.4) and third in scoring (9.6) last season.
He was the last player left who came to the Panthers under previous coach Pat Baldwin, who was fired after going 10-22 in 2021-22.
Leading scorer B.J. Freeman, a preseason first-team all-league pick, missed the opener after violating team rules and was sidelined five other games with an undisclosed injury.
The 6-foot-6 guard is averaging 19.5 points after leading the team in scoring (18.2) and rebounding (5.1) last season.
Serious threats: Youngstown State (10-3) is riding a seven-game winning streak and has built its NET rating to 101.
Star guard Dwayne Cohill has moved on, but Brandon Rush is a preseason second-team all-league pick, and D.J. Burns is averaging a league-high 9.1 rebounds.
Northern Kentucky (7-6) went 22-13 last season and won the league tourney, beating Cleveland State, 63-61. The Norse lost to Houston in the NCAA first round, 63-52.
Senior guard Marques Warrick, who is averaging 18.4 points, was named first-team all-league last season, and junior guard Sam Vinson was picked third-team all-league and made the all-defensive team.
Cleveland State (8-5) has finished first, first and second the last three years. Tristan Enaruna, who made first-team all-league last year, will challenge the Raiders’ Trey Calvin for player of the year honors.
He’s third in the league with an 18.7 average, and he just had 32 points and 10 rebounds in a win over Western Michigan to earn his second HL player of the week award this year.
Oakland (6-7) makes the list because it has the third-best NET in the league at 130. Junior forward Trey Townsend, who is sixth in the HL in scoring with a 16.3 average, was named preseason first-team all-league.
A year away (at least): Nagy may see parity in the league, but nobody with a bottom-100 NET rating is winning the title. That means you, Green Bay (263), Robert Morris (282), Detroit Mercy (355) and IUPUI (358).
Seasoned coaches: Greg Kampe has 681 wins in 40 years at Oakland. He’s spent more seasons at one school than any other current coach.
Robert Morris’ Andrew Toole is in his 14th year, PFW’s Jon Coffman his 10th and YSU’s Jerrod Calhoun his seventh.
The HL’s lone new coach is Sundance “Sunny” Wicks at Green Bay. The Phoenix is 6-7 after going 3-29 and 5-25 the last two years.
But as Nagy, who is in his eighth year at Wright State, wisely pointed out:
“It comes down more to players than it does the coaches. It always does.”
FRIDAY’S GAME
Wright State at Green Bay, 1 p.m., ESPN+, 101.5, 1410
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