The Horizon League champion Wright State Raiders will call the City of Brotherly Love home this week. Head coach Clint Sargent’s team earned a No. 14 seed in the NCAA Tournament and will meet No. 3 Virginia on Friday in Philadelphia.
Wright State currently stands as a just under 20-point underdog, the kind of margin that invites “shock and awe”, as Jim Nantz once described in a Virginia tournament game.
For Sargent, in his 10th season with the program, it will be his third NCAA Tournament on the Raiders’
bench following appearances in 2018 and 2022, but his first as head coach, making it all the more meaningful for him.
“When you get a chance to lead a place that expects to win, and then being here for those wins in those years, you feel the honor of that pressure,” Sargent told Mid-Major Madness. “To have that experience early, where we’re winning, and then a couple hard years, to retool the roster, to steady the ship, and to have this moment with this team, it’s really incredible.”
After learning under former Wright State and now Southern Illinois head coach Scott Nagy as both a player and coach, Sargent was the perfect match for the program when Nagy became the Salukis’ head man in 2024.
Roster construction tends to be the first topic of discussion for new head coaches, but Sargent made sure to solidify the rest of his bench when he took the reins.
“To have continuity with our staff has been critical. To go through your first two years as a head coach with guys that you worked with while you were an assistant is rare,” Sargent said. “Dan Beré, Travis Trice, Nick Goff, Jaaron Simmons, Isaiah Bales, those guys have been monumental in forging all this for our program.”
In Sargent’s first year at the helm, the Raiders won 15 games, following up back-to-back 18-win seasons, but as someone who’s been in the program for years, he knew that was well below the standard. In an effort to get Wright State back to the NCAA Tournament, Sargent began building the roster.
For the Raiders, winning a regular-season championship and earning the Horizon League’s automatic bid was powered by a youthful roster. Six of the team’s top seven scorers were either freshmen or sophomores.
Michael Cooper, a true freshman, leads the team in scoring, with sophomore TJ Burch just behind him. Burch was also named Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year and is ninth in the country in steals per game. When Wright State needed a big stop to win the conference tournament, it was freshman Kellen Pickett who made the championship-sealing block to advance to the Big Dance.
Oftentimes, experience is viewed as a quality all championship-level teams possess, but the Raiders feel like their youth, and therefore lack of that experience, has been a benefit.
“We’re just out there having fun. We’re young too, so we’re still trying to figure it out as we go,” Burch told Mid-Major Madness. “What makes it even better is it’s a lot of us young guys, it’s our first time doing it.”
In retrospect, leaning on a youthful roster is paying major dividends for Sargent, but early in the season, the growing pains were apparent, and a championship may not have been on his mind.
Back in November, separated by about three weeks, Wright State had road opportunities at Cal and Butler. In the game against Cal, it trailed by just six at half, eventually falling by 10. At Hinkle Field House, the Raiders led at the break, but fell 94-69 after allowing 65 second-half points.
Although both were losses, the November contests against high-major competition served as a litmus test, and showed Sargent his group had a long way to go.
“I don’t think we expected to win yet,” Sargent said. “At Butler, we were up at half, and the same thing happened in the second half. I don’t think our team saw themselves as deserving to win that game.”
After the Butler loss, Wright State played two Horizon League games, splitting the pair after falling at Youngstown State then dominating Green Bay at home. It still, however, hadn’t turned the corner in Sargent’s eyes.
Three nonconference mid-major opponents separated the early Horizon League action from the remainder of the conference slate. The Raiders dropped games narrowly on the road to Marshall and at home to Miami (OH) before beating Eastern Michigan to wrap up the nonconference season.
“Right after Christmas, we played Oakland at home, won that game, and I do think that sparked some confidence. Then to go on a seven game winning streak through that time period, we felt like we were playing pretty good,” Sargent said. “I could see the competitive spirit and I could see our defensive numbers were improving. So for those reasons, we felt like it was just a matter of time to get that confidence from winning games. Once that happened, we really took off.”
In the early stages of the season, Burch was coming off the bench. He was inserted into the starting lineup for the Eastern Michigan game and tallied four steals, following it up by making his second-consecutive start against Oakland and recording six more steals.
Not only did Burch provide a boost to the starting lineup both scoring and forcing turnovers, he provided a unique leadership perspective, being just a sophomore.
“Being on the court, playing with high energy, just getting after it and seeing everybody else follow it makes it [being a leader] easy,” Burch said. “I feel like that’s the reason why we’ve had a lot of success this year, because we all pick up after each other.”
Younger players carving out leadership roles has been crucial for Wright State’s success this season, and despite the rotation being mostly underclassmen, the veteran leadership has been equally as important.
Veteran big-man Michael Imariagbe is the most notable of the Raiders’ veterans. He is third on the team in scoring and first in rebounding, providing a steady presence in the frontcourt for Sargent as young forwards, like Pickett, grow into their roles.
When Wright State badly needed offense in the Horizon League championship, a game it trailed for nearly the entire second half, it wasn’t one of the team’s underclassmen or leading scorers who stepped up, it was Logan Woods. The redshirt junior is in his fourth season with the program and despite being eighth on the team in scoring, knocked down two 3-pointers to give the Raiders a six-point lead they would never surrender to secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
“[The veterans] never flinch at trusting the coaches. When you have that at the top, you just think about all your young kids who are still learning, they’re generally going to care about what the older players care about,” Sargent said. “We always say we feel like we have the best peer-to-peer influence and culture in the country. We try to prioritize that when we recruit those older guys who have college basketball experience, just to help the freshmen learn how to be right minded. It’s something as a coach that means the world to me.”
Sargent went out on a limb with a unique blend of youth and veteran leadership, but when it mattered most, it worked out. Wright State sat alone atop the Horizon League standings for nearly the entire season, eventually winning the regular-season title by multiple games.
Winning the regular season wasn’t the end goal for the Raiders, however.
“We’ve said from the very beginning that we want to put these guys on the biggest stage against the best teams, and they believe that. And now, we’re getting the opportunity to do that,” Sargent said.
To earn that opportunity, Wright State had to win games in every way imaginable throughout the season, culminated by a conference tournament in which the Raiders showcased their ability to play any style.
The tournament run began with a home game against Cleveland State. Wright State shook off a slow start and rode a 53-point second half to win 90-61. In semifinal action against Northern Kentucky, the Raiders posted 103 points in a 13-point win. On championship Tuesday, the script flipped and Sargent’s group found itself in a rock fight with Detroit Mercy. Offense was hard to come by, but Wright State did just enough to win.
Plenty of No. 1 seeds in one-big leagues failed to do what the Raiders did, but they didn’t necessarily feel like there was additional pressure due to the seed.
“We had been in first place for almost the entire league season, but it also felt like nobody really saw us as that,” Sargent said. “It was ‘they’re young, the league’s this and that and the parity of it’, which is true. But we also felt like, ‘we’ve been leading this from the beginning, let’s go finish it off.’”
Having been an underdog in a sense all season, even as the Horizon League’s best team, Wright State needs no extra motivation to be at its best on Friday on the national stage, but with a roster full of fierce competitors, a chance to face a top team on national TV will always provide a boost.
“I get a chance to show everybody what I can do and what I’ve been doing. That’s the biggest thing,” Burch said. “I’m a competitor, so I’m not gonna stand down to anybody. I honestly don’t care about the name of the school, that’s not me. I’m out here to win.”
Outside of the Raiders’ locker room, there is no expectation for a win for the No. 14 seed, but that doesn’t matter to Wright State which has motivated itself all season en route to championships and a tournament berth. No matter the opponent, it is going to take an end-to-end maximum-effort performance to put these Raiders away.
“We always try to motivate ourselves from the obligation we have to pour it out and empty the tank for each other, our families, the university,” Sargent said.
However Virginia wants Friday’s matchup to go, whether that’s playing fast or slowing the game down, it can’t let off the gas for 40 minutes if it wants to avoid an upset. Wright State has scored triple digits, but also won games in the 60s and is not going to be uncomfortable or back down, regardless of the flow of the game.
For the Cavaliers to emerge victorious and advance, they can’t just knock the Raiders down and coast to a comfortable victory, they have to knock them out entirely.
No game this season with Wright State has been over to the final buzzer. It overcame a 20-point deficit in the regular-season finale and more importantly, overcame a double-digit second-half deficit in the Horizon League championship to earn the right to be here.
Come 1:50 p.m. ET on Friday, Virginia better be prepared to play a full 40 minutes, because the Raiders are playing with house money and looking to put the nation on notice.
“They’re just not afraid to die,” Sargent said. “They’re just ready.”
