“That’s how you would like to draw it up — just that balance to it. Everybody’s in rhythm, everybody’s touching the ball, everybody’s kind of in their best place offensively and defensively,” Sargent said.
Though the Raiders are 13-13 overall and 6-7 in the Horizon League, the all-around showing generated some optimism going into their annual Wisconsin swing, playing Milwaukee on Friday and Green Bay on Sunday.
But Sargent and his players know there’s still much more to do to break their trend of being, well, consistently inconsistent.
They haven’t won two games in a row since beating Green Bay and Oakland on Jan. 2 and 9. They’ve gone 4-4 in their last eight games, following every loss with a win.
That’s why Sargent is still in a wait-and-see mode.
“Milwaukee came in here and thumped us. It’ll be a great opportunity to see if we can respond now for two games in a row,” he said.
The Raiders have had a home-and-away series with Milwaukee and Green Bay every season since their second year in the league in 1995-96.
They’ve been hitting both schools on a single jaunt to Wisconsin every year but one since 2015-16. They often took separate trips to get the two road games in before that.
Either way, they’ve only swept the Panthers and Phoenix on the road twice in 29 years (2022-23 and 2012-13).
They’ve split 12 times and lost both games 14 times, including last season.
In the 2020-21 pandemic year, they played both teams twice at home, going 4-0.
Asked why Wisconsin sweeps have been so elusive, Sargent said: “They both have good fan bases. They’re both typically very good. It’s always hard to win on the road. You got a little bit of travel. But I would say it’s just more they’re two really good teams.”
He added: “I’m just focused on Milwaukee right now. After what happened in here last time and what that felt like, I’m quickly onto that, and that’s really the primary focus.”
Milwaukee won, 95-79, at the Nutter Center and is fifth in the HL at 16-9 and 9-5.
But Green Bay, which is 2-23 and 0-14, is a mess, making it difficult to see the Doug Gottlieb experiment lasting beyond this year.
Their wins were against Western Illinois and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville in November, and Gottlieb was roasted nationally last week for skipping a couple of practices to do his weekday Fox Sports Radio Show from the Super Bowl.
“It’s not like we’re down here, and I’m off on Bourbon Street. It’s not like I’m drinking a hurricane on Bourbon Street,” he said to a media outlet.
“If people want to think I’m not doing my job because I’m in New Orleans doing a radio job, which had been preplanned, again, there is nothing I’m really going to be able to say — other than my players like playing for me, and we are going to compete.”
The Raiders, of course, are in no position to take anyone lightly. They’re trying to avoid becoming the program’s first team to go through a season without a three-game winning streak since 2004-05.
“The last eight games, going win-loss, win-loss, win-loss, that’s unfortunate. But the light at the end of the tunnel is we still have five games left, and the most important games are still ahead of us,” star Brandon Noel said.
“We still have a chance in this last part of the year to make a run. That’s what I see as the positive being — we still have more season to play. We still have more opportunities to get wins and string some together and make a run in March.”
FRIDAY’S GAME
Wright State at Milwaukee, 8 p.m., ESPN+, 101.5, 1410
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