Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
For someone in the midst of a shooting slump, Wright State’s Bill Wampler didn’t exactly get the start he wanted against Northern Kentucky in a battle of the Horizon League’s top two teams Friday.
The Raiders’ leader in 3-pointers had missed his previous nine attempts — 0 of 2 against Detroit, 0 of 3 against Oakland and 0 of 4 in the second half at IUPUI — and his first trey from the corner early in the game sailed over everything.
“I airballed it pretty bad,” he said with a sheepish grin.
But with his team in desperation mode, he went on a torrid stretch. He scored 13 straight points for the Raiders from 5:11 to 2:50 of the first half — making three 3s, a mid-range jumper and a layup without a miss — to help cut a 16-point deficit to six. He finished with a career-best 29 points in the 81-77 victory.
“Bill had a tough start. But then he hit that one 3, and he really got going,” coach Scott Nagy said. “Obviously, we really needed it at that moment. He had some big points there in the first half.”
It was a must-win scenario for the Raiders, who are now tied for first with NKU at 10-4 with four games left. UIC and Green Bay are tied for third at 8-6.
“They went on a big run, and Coach gave us a little gut-check in the (timeout) huddle,” said Wampler, who sat out last season after transferring from Drake. “It was like, ‘Do you guys really want to be here?’ He knew we wanted to be there, and we just had to turn it around.
“Guys started looking for me, especially because they saw the ball go in the basket. They saw it in my eyes, and I was hollering for the ball. I wanted to shoot it.”
