The tourney has attracted some of the best mid-major programs in the country. GW was picked to finish 13th in the Atlantic 10, but that’s an anomaly. Six of the other seven schools were selected fourth or higher in their league preseason polls.
And most have all-conference stars leading the way:
Kent State: fourth out of 12 in the Mid-American Conference behind second-team all-league guard Sincere Carry.
James Madison: fourth of 10 in the Colonial Athletic Association with guard Vado Morse making all-league second team.
East Tennessee State: third of 10 in the Southern Conference behind all-conference guards David Sloan and Ledarrius Brewer.
Murray State: third of 10 in the Ohio Valley Conference with guard Tevin Brown and forward K.J. Williams making all-league.
Missouri State: fourth of 10 in the Missouri Valley Conference with guard Isiah Mosley and forward Gaige Prim making first-team all-league.
And Long Beach State: seventh of 10 in the Big West.
The Raiders, of course, were picked second in the Horizon League poll and had two players who snagged all-league honors in Grant Basile and Tanner Holden. But as Nagy pointed out, they haven’t exactly looked the part so far.
They were tagged with a 96-88 loss at Marshall and 96-52 defeat at Purdue last week.
“We’re obviously not in a great spot now after these past two games,” he said. “There’s a lot of work for us to do.
“Going into this tournament, nobody is going to be afraid of us based on these last two games — our stats and everything else. We’re still trying to figure out who we are.”
The Raiders will play Tuesday in the semifinals if they win and in the consolation bracket if they lose. Their opponent will be either Kent State or James Madison.
And Nagy knows they can’t hope to advance without shoring up some trouble areas. They’re shooting just 38.8% from the field and 27.8 on 3′s after hitting 48.3 and 37.0 last season.
They’re also getting bludgeoned on the boards, having been out-rebounded by 8.3 per game after being one the nation’s leaders last season at plus-9.3.
But what’s troubling Nagy most perhaps are turnovers.
They protected the ball like a Fabergé Egg last season, committing just 13.1 turnovers per game. But they’ve had 17 in each of their last two outings.
“We’re just turning the ball over too much,” Nagy said. “Not having Loudon anymore — because he led us in turnovers — I thought we had a chance at being great at taking care of the ball. And it’s been a problem for us.”
For all the positive impact he had, Loudon Love was turnover-prone. He had 68 in 24 games, almost three per outing, while the other four starters had between 37 and 43.
“It’s been a problem in practice, too.” Nagy said. “It’s to the point where, how much do you talk about it because it becomes a mental thing, too?
“Our players aren’t playing with any kind of confidence, and I thought they would by this point.”
Part of the problem is that the Raiders haven’t settled on a starting lineup, much less a playing rotation.
Riley Voss, C.J. Wilbourne and Alex Huibregtse have all started in the spot vacated by Love. And in the two closed scrimmages against Ball State and Eastern Kentucky, two others were in the first five.
“We have no idea,” Nagy said about who will emerge to play beside returnees Holden, Basile, Trey Calvin and Tim Finke. “And Monday, it’s probably going to be a different one again.
“Here we are with six different starting lineups. We talked about 11 different starting lineups (in the preseason). I can’t figure out if that’s good or not so good. But we need our bench to step up and play.”
TODAY’S GAME
Wright State vs. George Washington, 2:30 p.m., Flohoops.com, 103.9
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