Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Wright State coach Scott Nagy has always been passionate about defense, and the stat he uses to measure his teams is points per possession, not points allowed per game, because that takes into account the pace of play.
The Raiders excelled the last three seasons in that area, giving up less than one point per possession. That’s the goal of most programs and generally considered a sure path to success.
But late in his previous stint at South Dakota State, he had to adapt to his personnel and come up with a different way to win.
“We had some pretty good offensive teams with that last group. We had Nate Wolters. He was such a good player. And then we had Mike Daum after that,” Nagy said.
Wolters averaged more 20 points his last two seasons and was a second-round NBA draft choice, while Daum became the 10th player in NCAA history to score 3,000 career points.
The Jackrabbits gave up considerably more than one point per possession and were ranked 294th or worse nationally (out of roughly 350 teams) four of Nagy’s last five years.
But they averaged 24.2 wins and made three NCAA tourney trips in that span, reaching the second round twice.
“We had such good shooting teams,” Nagy said. “Still, the focus was defense. We probably were as good defensively as we could be. We just didn’t have great athletes.”
