But while Nagy wouldn’t want to repeat the experience, having a Hickory High School-style lineup from the movie “Hoosiers” wasn’t as bad as it sounds.
“You coach and do what you have to do just like any other game,” he said. “You have to think through timeouts better because you need some strategy to give guys some rest. But in Division I basketball, every four minutes (there’s a media timeout).
“It’s not the worst thing for a kid to play 40 minutes. They’re capable of doing it. But they just ran out of gas the last seven minutes against Youngstown State.”
The Raiders will be at full strength when they face IUPUI on the road Thursday, except for a couple of injured back-ups. That means star point guard Trey Calvin and freshman center A.J. Braun will start again, while freshman Keaton Norris, who played all 40 minutes in both games at point guard, and junior C.J. Wilbourn, who split post duties with walk-on Andy Neff, will become rotation players again.
“It’ll just be nice to have depth back and have more options,” Nagy said.
Braun will play despite the death of his father, Tony Braun, 62, on Jan. 11. The entire team was scheduled to attend the visitation Tuesday, and the coaches planned to go to the funeral Wednesday.
Nagy, who lost his father, Dick Nagy, on Oct. 6, said the staff and players have rallied around the Fenwick High School grad.
“It’s hard … but it’s good for the team to do that,” he said.
Nagy has never been one to go very deep in his bench, and he believes the limited roster actually worked in the Raiders’ favor, at least offensively.
“We did some things last weekend — we had more assists than we’ve had and more offensive rebounds than we’ve had. Those guys played hard,” said Nagy, whose team averaged 81 points in the two games.
“When a player knows the coach doesn’t have any options, I think it helps them relax. You look at Tim Finke and his weekend offensively.”
After notching a career-high 18 in the opener against Lake Erie, Finke hadn’t scored more than 13 until getting 19 and 18 in the two games last week.
Tanner Holden tied his career high with 27 against Robert Morris and had a total of 45 points and 20 rebounds. And Grant Basile had 49 points and 18 boards.
“I just think there’s such a different mindset when you know, ‘I can take this shot, and they’re not going to take me out.’ I think there’s something to be said for that with our mindset. Offensively, we were fine last weekend. We just struggled to get people stopped, which is normal for us,” Nagy said.
The Raiders, who are 9-8 overall, have been fairly prolific on offense but anemic on defense, which why they have one of the wider gaps nationally between those two facets of the game.
They’re 67th in scoring with a 74.8 average against Division-I foes and 309th (out of 357 teams) in opponents’ points per game at 76.4.
Factoring in pace of play, they still don’t fare much better. They’re 88th in offensive efficiency (1.036 points per possession) and 309th in defensive efficiency (1.059).
“We’ve always had pretty good offensive teams. That’s always been a trademark of ours because we give our guys a lot of freedom and get to the free-throw line a lot. But what’s that gotten us? It’s gotten us to 9-8,” Nagy said.
The Raiders are in third place in the Horizon League at 6-2, trailing Oakland (7-0) and Cleveland State (7-1), and being merely competent defensively would allow them to contend for a fourth straight regular-season title.
“There are some coaches who think, ‘We’ve got to get in the top four’ (to earn a bye for the conference tournament). I don’t think that way, That’s how losers think. I want to win the league. That’s all I care about,” Nagy said.
“I know the only way to win it is to be one of the top defensive teams, and we’re not that right now. Against some of these teams, we can skate by because we can outscore them. But we’re going into a pretty tough stretch. If we don’t get any better defensively, it’s going to show up, and it’ll be disappointing.”
THURSDAY’S GAME
Wright State at IUPUI, 7 p.m., ESPN+, TBD
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