Wright State needs to set aside loss, get ready for another tough test

Of course, it’s just one game. The Raiders have 29 more on the schedule, including one at home at 7 p.m. Tuesday against a top-tier mid-major in Toledo.

But Nagy knows the problems that surfaced in the 105-77 shellacking at Colorado State won’t magically disappear without the Raiders making a major commitment to getting them fixed.

“There are things that are lingering with our team. This is the third year in a row that we haven’t gotten off to a very good start,” he said.

“It’s just one game. But there are some patterns where we’re seeing the same things over and over. We need to get it changed.”

The Raiders have been getting pummeled in early-season games the last two seasons. They started 4-6 against Division-I foes last year and 1-7 two years ago.

The 105 points were the most by a Raider foe since the Miami RedHawks also reached that figure in a 105-86 win on Dec. 27, 1995.

The most they’ve given up in their D-I era (since 1987) actually was in a win: 116-113 over U.S. International on Jan. 20, 1990.

Central Michigan finished one point shy of that in a 112-85 victory on Dec. 8, 1990.

“There’s no one thing — like, oh, we’ll do this and it’ll change everything,” Nagy said.

“It’s certainly not the start we wanted.”

The Raiders led by 11 in the first half against the Rams, fell behind by six and then cut the deficit to 45-42 at halftime on Trey Calvin’s 3.

“The first half is all we watched,” Nagy said of reviewing the video. “The second half got out of hand. But the first half, people would go, ‘Oh, you must’ve played well.’ No, we didn’t. We didn’t play well at all.”

Calvin went 12 of 21 from the field, 4 of 7 on 3′s and 5 of 5 on foul shots for 33 points.

He scored at least 30 four times last season, including 44 in a triple-overtime loss at Youngstown State. That was one off Bill Edwards’ single-game record.

He also had 37 in the Raiders’ opener last season — a 102-97 double-overtime defeat to Davidson.

But that game underscored Nagy’s point about defensive breakdowns.

He said Colorado State made 25 layups on the way to shooting 63.6%, the highest clip by an opponent in Nagy’s eight years.

“It’s really hard to overcome that,” he said. “That’s (almost) half their points, simple layups.”

The Rockets became the first current MAC team to win three straight outright regular-season titles last year.

They were picked fourth in the preseason poll behind favorite Akron, Kent State and Ohio. Toledo went 27-8 overall and 16-2 in the conference, winning a school-record 17 straight games before losing in the league tourney finals to Kent State.

The Rockets lost an NIT first-round game to Michigan, 90-80.

Junior guard Ra’Heim Moss, a 6-4 junior from Springfield, is a three-year starter and the team’s leading scorer with a 15.5 average.

The Rockets opened with a 94-60 home win over Detroit Mercy and then rallied from a 16-point deficit to beat visiting Louisiana, 87-78, on Saturday.

The Raiders’ first game in the Gulf Coast Showcase on Nov. 20 is against Louisiana.

A rivalry of sorts exists between the Horizon League and MAC since they operate in the same region and recruit many of the same players.

Nagy has gone 11-7 against the MAC, including 2-1 against Toledo. But the Horizon League has some low performers that continue to drag the conference down.

In the 2022-23 NET rankings, the MAC had six teams in the top-200: Kent State (68), Toledo (82), Akron (105), Ohio (133) Ball State (156) and Buffalo (195).

The Horizon League had no one in the top 100 and only four in the top 200: Youngstown State (127), Northern Kentucky (151), Cleveland State (185) and Wright State (197).

“I’ve never felt disrespected by any of their teams, and I know they’ve got a lot of respect for us,” Nagy said. “But you look at the numbers, and their league is ranked higher than ours. It just is.”

Playing FBS football — with many of those games being mid-week features on ESPN — also might contribute to the MAC feeling as if it’s the better league.

“There’s reasons for them to think that way. But I don’t think they think that way about us,” Nagy said.

TUESDAY’S GAME

Toledo at Wright State, 7 p.m., ESPN+, 1410, 101.5