By Marisol Nicholson
DAYTON – The Wright State men’s basketball team returns back to Horizon League play for its final 19 regular season contests beginning on Friday afternoon as the Raiders take on Green Bay. Friday’s game will tip at 1 p.m. ET and fans can follow the action several ways – via live stats, by watching on ESPN+ or by tuning in to the new home for Raider Basketball 101.5 HANK FM and WING 1410 AM. Chris Collins will have all the play-by-play on the radio feed.
Fans can tune into 101.5 HANK FM live over the air in the Dayton metro area, as well stream the station live nationwide through a variety of free streaming apps. The iHeartRadio app, the TuneIn Radio app and the Audacy app are all FREE and each carry 101.5 HANK FM. Just search “101.5 HANK FM” on any of the three apps for Raider Basketball.
FRIDAY: WATCH ON ESPN+ | FOLLOW LIVE STATS | LISTEN ON 101.5 HANK FM | GAME NOTES
LAST TIME OUT
Wright State men’s basketball team closed out its non-conference slate with a 101-54 win over visiting Muskingum last Friday. Tanner Holden led Wright State with 19 points and Andrew Welage finished with 17 points. AJ Braun finished with nine of his 12 points in the opening 20 minutes while he tied his career-high with a game-best 12 rebounds. Kaden Brown notched 14 points for a new career-best of his own, Trey Calvin added 13 points and Drey Carter finished with 12 points.
FACING THE PHOENIX
Wright State won all three meetings with Green Bay last season, including a win in the Horizon League quarterfinals, and has now won 14 of the last 16 meetings overall in the series.The first meeting came back on December 7, 1987, a Green Bay victory in the Raiders’ first year as a Division I program. A tight series throughout history, Wright State now has a slim, 39-33 overall series lead.
DAYTIME PROGRAMMING
Wright State is in the middle of a stretch of three straight daytime tipoffs, the first time that’s happened for the Raiders since November 2021 at the Naples Invitational, playing at 2:30 p.m. (George Washington) and back-to-back noon tips (James Madison, Long Beach State). Wright State played six straight daytime games during the COVID year: The Raiders closed non-conference play with a 1 p.m. tip against Muskingum on Dec. 22 and wraps up the stretch with a 2 p.m. local start at Milwaukee on Sunday after the early game at Green Bay.
PHOENIX RISING
– Green Bay is currently 6-7 overall on the season and 1-1 in Horizon League play. The Phoenix are 4-1 at home, with home victories against NAIA St. Francis (Ill.), St. Thomas, Milwaukee and NCAA D-III Milwaukee School of Engineering. Green Bay also has road wins at Montana State and at UIC.
– Noah Reynolds is the lone player averaging double digits scoring at 17.3 points/game, while Elijah Jones’ 6.8 rebounds/game leads the team in that category.
HOT SHOTS
Four regular rotation players are connecting at over 50.0 percent from the floor, led by AJ Braun’s 65.9 percent, followed by Drey Carter (61.7), Tanner Holden (56.3) and Andrew Welage (52.3). Trey Calvin (49.1 percent), Brandon Noel and Alex Huibregtse (both 48.1 percent) are also on the shooting pace.
HOLDEN IT DOWN
Tanner Holden has tallied double figures scoring in 10 of 12 games in his Raider return, notching his third 20-plus point game of the year with a season-best 27 points in the Dec. 19 win over Miami (OH). Holden’s current 16.2 points/game average is the second-best of his career behind only his 20.1 points/game average in 2021-22.
NOEL NOEL
After a slow start to the year with scoring outputs of eight, 10 and four points, Brandon Noel has returned to form, notching double figures scoring in seven of his last eight contests, with the only blip a five-point game against Western Kentucky. Noel notched his second double-double of the season in the Dec. 19 win over Miami (OH) with 25 points and 12 rebounds, both season-highs. Noel finished with 11 double-doubles a season ago, including nine double-doubles after the calendar flipped to January.
BIG BRAUN
AJ Braun pulled down a career-high 16 rebounds in the Dec. 22 win over Muskingum, including 13 boards on the defensive glass. The 13 defensive rebounds by themselves would have been the second-most rebounds in his career. Braun has four career games with 10-plus rebounds, inclduing three times this season: 12 vs. Louisiana on Nov. 20, 10 vs. Bethel on Dec. 7 and the 16 against Muskingum on Dec. 22.
WISCONSIN HOMECOMING
Wisconsin native Alex Huibregtse will play in his home state of Wisconsin this weekend for the second straight season. In three Wisconsin games last year, Huibregtse finished with 22 total points (7.33 per/game) and shot 33 percent overall (8-of-24) and 25 percent (4-of-16) from deep, adding seven rebounds, five assists, two steals and a block. The Grafton, WI native and the Raiders hosted both Green Bay and Milwaukee in the COVID-altered 2020-21 season and Huibregtse missed the 2021-22 road games with injury. Grafton is an hour and a half from the Resch Center in Green Bay and just 25 minutes from Panther Arena in Milwaukee, with Huibregtse expecting fans in both locations. Huibregtse was a Wisconsin First Team All-State selection in Division 2 as a senior after averaging 24.2 points per game while shooting 47.3 percent from three-point range.
CENTURY MARK
Wright State’s 101-54 win over Muskingum on Dec. 22 marked the fourth straight season the Raiders have reached the century mark. Under head coach Scott Nagy, the Raiders have reached the 100-point mark now five times, while Wright State has totaled 100 or more points just seven times since the 2000-01 season.
COURTESY WRIGHT STATE ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS
