Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Loudon Love’s coaches and teammates experienced some angst when he fractured his right elbow early last season. The star center was a first-team All-Horizon League pick, and losing such a powerful presence figured to be a major setback.
But the least-worried person around Wright State may have been the player poised to replace him.
Grant Basile, a 6-foot-9 redshirt freshman, was thrust into the starting lineup and produced Love-like numbers over the next five games, averaging 13.8 points and 10 rebounds while helping the team go 4-1, including wins over Western Kentucky and Miami.
Providing that stability in the post propelled Basile to a spot on the league’s all-freshman team. And though he knew how much the Raiders would be relying on him, he said: “I think we all rely on each other. We have the next-man-up mentality. We had seven or eight guys lead us in scoring last year. Everyone would just take their turn.”
Wright State had seven players who either led or co-led the team in scoring en route to a 25-7 record: Bill Wampler (14 times), Love (nine), Tanner Holden (five), Basile (three), Jaylon Hall (two) and Trey Calvin and James Manns (once each).
“We had to do that to have a successful year,” Basile said. “We’ll have to do that even more this year. We have a lot of guys who can score and pick up the slack for each other.”
