SAN DIEGO โ On the surface, Arizona and Wright State donโt have much in common entering Fridayโs first-round showdown of the NCAA Tournament.
The Wildcats are among the favorites to win the national championship. Wright State, the Horizon League Tournament champion, is trying to accomplish something only 1 out of 144 No. 16 seeds have done in college basketball history: Upset a top seed.
The Wildcats rank 19th in college basketball in possessions per game; Wright State is 135th. This is Arizonaโs 36th trip to the Big Dance; Wright State is playing in its fourth-ever NCAA Tournament.
Dig deeper into the Arizona-Wright State matchup, however, and the teams arenโt as different as one might think. Wright State ranks 35th in the country in free-throw percentage (76.9%), while Arizona is 103rd (73.8%). In Wright Stateโs First Four win over Bryant on Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio, the Raiders shot 26 for 32 from the free-throw line.
Guard Tanner Holden hit 14 for 16 from the line, finishing with 37 points.
โThey try to play fast and they put foul pressure on you,โ UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. โThere are some similarities in terms of how they share the basketball and how itโs free-flowing. โฆ The similarities are they donโt mind getting up and down the court. They play with great fundamentals and they read and react to a lot of things in the game.โ
โGlue guysโ meet
Like Arizona forward Dalen Terry, who was named to The Athleticโs โAll-Glue Guy Team,โ Wright State redshirt junior forward Tim Finke, who briefly played at Grand Canyon before transferring to the Raiders, is the teamโs โutility guy.โ
While Finke doesnโt stuff the box score, heโs a do-everything player that normally guards the opposing teamโs best player. Finke guarded Bryant star Peter Kiss and held him to 28 points on 25 shot attempts.
โHeโs a great kid, plays extremely hard and heโs your ultimate โglue guy.โ Youโd say heโs very similar to what Dalen Terry does for us,โ said Arizona assistant TJ Benson, who recruited Finke to GCU. โHe does whatever he wants, whatever you want him to do for the team and I think heโs found a pretty good spot at Wright State. โฆ He will do anything you need him to do, from guarding the opposing teamโs best player to rebound, shooting and passing, heโs always been that guy โ even in high school, when I went go see him play his senior year โ thatโs impacted the game in a lot of ways.โ
Lloyd said Finke โis a tough, hard-nosed player and he plays with great effort.โ
Wright State trekked from Dayton to Viejas Arena to make its pre-tournament practice at Viejas Arena on Thursday.
โWeโre a little tired from the trip, but weโd rather be tired than not be in it,โ Nagy said. โWe have a tall task in front of us, both figuratively and literally in terms of who we play.โ
Emotional season leads to NCAAs
Playing in the NCAA Tournament is a reward for a special season for programs like Wright State, which come from one-bid conferences, but this yearโs run is more special to Nagy.
The coachโs father died on Oct. 6, followed by a close family friend that Nagy referred to as his brother.
โAnd we got off to a terrible start,โ Nagy said. โAnd I wasnโt in a very good spot emotionally, mentally, spiritually. And so I wasnโt much help when we got out to that bad start.โ
Wright Stateโs players lost loved ones as well. Center A.J. Braunโs father died, along with the grandfathers of Holden, forward Grant Basile and James Manns. Nagyโs son, T.J. Nagy, also grieved his grandfather passing. Grieving the deaths of close family members affected Wright State and the emotions trickled onto the court, but it made the Raiders closer as a unit.
โWhen we were 2-7, our guys were loving on each other. Itโs the reason why we were able to turn our season around. Because even when things werenโt very good, we held each other up,โ Nagy said. โAnd so itโs been one of the most rewarding seasons of my 27 years of being a head coach because of that.โ
When Wright State held off Northern Kentucky in the Horizon League Tournament championship game, the emotions poured over.
โIt was interesting, even after the championship game, you go around some of the parents, and just see the crying. And itโs like none of us had any time to ever grieve any of this stuff because weโre going through this basketball season,โ Nagy said, holding back tears. โI didnโt have time to grieve it. Bawled like a baby after. Just hugged my wife, just not being able to grieve my dadโs death because of everything else that was going on.โ
No bad guys
Win or lose against Arizona, Nagyโs 27th season as a head coach is one that may go down as his most memorable one.
โI donโt have a guy on this team that just eats up all my energy in terms of his attitude, have to worry about him every day when he comes to practice. And they just have been a very giving group,โ he said.
โItโs not easy in this day and age, it just isnโt. I donโt care what anybody says. In 27 years, Iโve seen this change. Itโs a very self-serving sport. And it has become more so โ and the entitlement has grown for sure. We just havenโt seen a bunch of it on our team. And itโs been a joy for me to coach this team because of that.โ
