The Raiders finished with season lows in field-goal shooting at 33.8% (their first time below 40%) and 3-point shooting by going 5 of 28 (17.9%) in losing to visiting Oakland, 74-60, before a Military Appreciation Night crowd of 5,860 on Saturday.
They fell to 14-12 overall and 9-6 in the Horizon League, suffering their third home loss in conference play.
Green Bay is first at 12-3, followed by Oakland (11-4) and Youngstown State (10-5).
“It’s the first time all year — 26 games — that we haven’t played well offensively. For me to say that, after this long, is incredible,” Nagy said.
“I told the players after the game, ‘As a coach, all you can ask is for your kids to play hard.’ And I thought they did. They didn’t give into the discouragement of having bad offense.
“We just haven’t seen that all year. It’s amazing how many easy shots we missed. It was an odd feeling for the players as well.”
No one could have seen it coming. In their last six games, they shot 58.5%, 57.9, 50.0, 49.1, 58.6 and 63.6.
HL preseason player of the year Trey Calvin went 5 of 14 overall and 0 of 7 on 3′s.
Tanner Holden had 15 points and 10 rebounds, but he went 5 of 17 from the field and 2 of 6 on 3′s.
“I think we came out very flat, especially me, and that put us in a hole,” A.J. Braun said. We had to come back the whole game. We were pretty bad offensively. That doesn’t help, either.”
“I would have put a lot of money down that Trey Calvin wouldn’t shoot 0-for-7,” Alex Huibregtse said. “It was just a tough night for us. I thought we got a lot of good looks. They just wouldn’t go down.”
The Raiders played from behind all night. They trailed, 36-24, at halftime for their lowest output in a half this season.
They had 28 points in an 85-76 loss to Hofstra and 29 in an 88-81 setback to Green Bay.
“You’ve got to give them credit,” Nagy said. “You knew coming off a loss (an OT defeat at Northern Kentucky on Thursday) that they would come in here and be ready to go, and they were.
“They put a lot of pressure on you because they have a good inside game, and they’ve got two dudes that really shoot it. It really stresses your defense if you’re going to play man to man.”
Down 13 after two free throws by Blake Lampman at 5:50, the Raiders scored six straight points to make it 63-56 with 4:13 to go.
After DQ Cole scored for the Grizzlies (16-10), Calvin hit two free throws at 2:26 to make it 65-58
But then Jack Gohlke — one of those “dudes” Nagy was talking about — hit one of his five 3′s, sending fans scurrying for the exits.
“When you struggle to score, you just put so much pressure on your defense that it tends to break down because they end up with fastbreaks,” Nagy said.
“You’ve got to be able to put the ball in the basket to slow them down, and we couldn’t do it.”
SATURDAY’S GAME
Robert Morris at Wright State, 1 p.m., ESPN+, 101.5, 1410
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