12/9/2022 

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DAYTON – The Wright State men’s basketball team hits the road for a Saturday night meeting at Western Kentucky as the Raiders move back into non-conference action after a pair of Horizon League contests last week. Wright State enters the contest 5-4 overall while Western Kentucky is 7-1 to date.

Fans can follow the action several ways – via live stats, by watching on ESPN+ or by tuning in on WONE 980 AM. Chris Collins and Jim Brown will have all the play-by-play on the radio feed.

LAST TIME OUT
Brandon Noel turned in his sixth double-digit scoring game of the season and finished one point shy of a career-high with 22 points Sunday afternoon, but it wasn’t enough for Wright State, who fell 88-77 to Youngstown State inside the Nutter Center. Noel finished the afternoon shooting 8-of-11 with eight rebounds, two steals and a block for a complete stat line, as AJ Braun tallied a career-best 17 points) and Amari Davis (14 points) was also in double figures scoring for the Raiders. Noel recorded 14 of his 22 in the first half, while Davis tallied 10 of his 14 in the second 20 minutes. Aside from the trio in double digits, Finke notched nine points, adding five rebounds, while Trey Calvin finished with seven points and five assists and Keaton Norris chipped in six points.

A WIN WOULD. . .
A victory on Saturday would get the Raiders back in the win column for the first time in December and halt what is a current two-game losing streak. Wright State had a trio of two-game slides last season along with the five straight setbacks as part of its early season seven-game road trip last November. Wright State is 1-0 in true road contests to date in 2022-23, with the victory also coming in the Bluegrass State, a 73-72 win over Louisville on Nov. 12 behind Trey Calvin’s buzzer-beater. 

LOOKING UP THE HILL(TOPPERS)
-Western Kentucky is 7-1 to date with three victories at home and its lone loss a 72-53 setback against Akron as part of the Cayman Islands Classic. 
-Western Kentucky’s opponents through the first month-plus of action has included a pair of NCAA Division II opponents in the University of Indianapolis and Kentucky State, who each counted their meetings with WKU as exhibitions but currently have a combined record of 11-3. The five combined records of WKU’s five NCAA Division I opponents to date is a combined 18-28, with just one (Tulane) sporting a winning record as of Dec. 7.
-Western Kentucky went 19-13 overall last with an 11-7 C-USA record, falling to Louisiana Tech in the C-USA Tournament quarterfinals. The Raiders and Hilltoppers have met twice previously, with Western Kentucky winning at home in December 2017 and the Raiders victorious inside the Nutter Center in December 2019.

THE MORE (WK)U KNOW. . .
-Three Hilltoppers were named to the Conference USA Preseason All-Conference team: Dayvion McKnight, Emmanuel Akot & Jamarion Sharp.
-Akot leads the team in scoring at 13.3 ppg, while WKU has four players averaging 10.0 ppg or better.
-Sharp’s 6.5 rebounds/game is best among five Hilltoppers averaging 3.0 rebounds/game or better, with Jairus Hamilton at 6.0 reboungs/game.
-Sharp is the tallest player in college basketball for the second season in a row at 7 feet, 5 inches. He’s also the tallest player in the history of the Hilltopper program. WKU has seven players who are 6-foot-7 or taller and is the country’s tallest team, according to Ken Pom.

LAST ONES STANDING
Both Wright State and Western Kentucky have just one player remaining from the last meeting on Dec. 3, 2019 – a 76-74 Raider win at the Nutter Center. Then-freshman Trey Calvin logged eight points in 16 minutes off the bench along with his first career block (now 14 total) for the Raiders, while Jordan Rawls played 10 minutes and chipped in four points off the bench for Western Kentucky.

BRAUN’S BRIGHT SPOT
Despite Wright State’s loss to Youngstown State on Dec. 4, the Raiders saw a bright spot from AJ Braun, who’s 17 points tied a career-high set almost a year to the day when he also had 17 points at Purdue Fort Wayne. His 7-of-11 shooting were both season-bests. Braun logged 29 minutes in the contest, the most in his career, surpassing his previous high of 27 minutes from earlier this season at Louisville.

NOEL NOEL
Brandon Noel is averaging 12.7 points per game through his first nine collegiate games, recording double digits scoring in six of those contests, while his 66.2 percent shooting mark is the best in the Horizon League to date and No. 13 nationally. Averaging 26.6 minutes per contest, Noel has played 25 or more minutes in six games and has logged over 20 minutes in all but the season-opener, when he recorded 19 minutes against Davidson.

HOT SHOTS
Wright State is shooting a combined 51.6 percent from the floor entering Saturday. The Raiders flirted with the program-best shooting percentage in the Nov. 17 win over Defiance, ending the night shooting 74.1 percent from the floor, just shy of the program record of 76.6 percent set December 16, 1978 against Otterbein. Wright State followed that effort up with a 60.0 percent mark against Abilene Christian (68.4 percent in the first half) and a 64.9 percent effort against Weber State (73.3 percent in the first half). The 51.6 percent field goal shooting percentage is currently tied for fourth in the nation behind Arizona (55.2), Denver (52.5) and Indiana (52.2) and tied with Missouri and Xavier.

COURTESY WRIGHT STATE ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS