“It’s was a good first step. Now, we’ve got to keep it going. We’ve got to protect it and keep fighting and stay desperate in practice, stay mature in practice, and string together some wins,” Sargent said.
That starts Thursday night with a rematch at home against Oakland (5-11, 2-3), which won the first meeting, 66-64.
The Grizzlies have historically given the Raiders fits with their match-up zone. They won the Horizon League regular-season and tourney titles and beat Kentucky in an NCAA first-round game last season.
Their record also is deceiving. In the Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii during Christmas week, they beat Chicago Loyola, which was picked fifth in the Atlantic 10 preseason poll, and then came within a whisker of knocking off Oregon State in the semifinals.
They had a five-point lead with 1:22 to go but let it slip away. Coming out of a timeout in a tie game with 12 seconds to go, DQ Cole picked up his dribble 30 feet from the basket and shot with seven seconds left. He missed, sending the game into OT and infuriating coach Greg Kampe.
Oregon State (12-4) dominated the extra session for an 80-74 win.
But the Raiders (8-8, 2-3) are learning they’re better off keeping the focus on themselves rather than doing a deep dive into a scouting report.
For Sargent, what’s going on inside his players is more important than what they might see on the court when they face Oakland, Robert Morris, Purdue Fort Wayne and Northern Kentucky over the next couple of weeks.
“With a number of teams in our league, you have to have that DNA in you where you can just play and think and process amongst the chaos,” he said.
“Cleveland State (which beat Wright State, 78-64 on Dec. 29) is in the top five in creating turnovers. They’re very disruptive. And I can see this pattern of our team where, in those type of games, we kind of wait and see if we THINK we can make things happen instead of dictating that.
“There’s just such a piece that’s internal for our players. And I’m trying, as the coach, to appropriately speak the right word.”
Sargent certainly hasn’t spared any feelings with his candid assessment of the Raiders’ .500 start, calling it “very average” and saying his team is “too susceptible to getting punked.”
Ouch.
But the players know the remedy is not to go macho and start throwing elbows to show how tough they are.
“I feel like we’re just getting started as a team. We went 0-3 (from Dec. 18-29), but it needed to happen for us to be more connected to each other and win more games,” forward Michael Imariagbe said.
“I feel like he just wants us to work as a team and be connected, not be selfish. You can tell when a team is playing one-on-one, by themselves. He wants us to have good energy on the court — always.”
One go-to stat for Sargent in measuring energy is offensive rebounding.
In three of their first four games, including Kentucky, they had more offensive boards than their opponents.
In the 12 games since then, they’ve had an offensive-rebound edge just twice, including a 9-4 advantage against Green Bay last week.
“It’s something we’ve been striving for all year. (Green Bay) was definitely a good showing for us. We’re going to continue to try to keep that up,” said center Brandon Noel, who’s scoring 19.3 points per game while his rebound average has dropped in the last year from 8.0 to 7.7.
“It’s tough to maintain that every game, but we have to. That’s what it takes to win at this level.”
THURSDAY’S GAME
Oakland at Wright State, 7 p.m., ESPN+, 101.5, 1410
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