I caught the WSU Raiders basketball game last night at the Nutt House with my buddy, Dave Chaliff. The Raiders were playing Division II Indianapolis in an exhibition game with roughly 2,500 fans in attendance.
With the graduation of All-Star Deshaun Wood, the Raiders are a very different team. They now have Will Graham starting at the point guard and doing a very capable job of keeping an up-tempo offense… Jordan Pleiman is the starting center at 6’8″ but unfortunately he still lacks the “chip on the shoulder” attitude to be an effective presence in the middle… Vaughn Duggins, the second year shooting guard looked very solid. He has an excellent mid-range jumper and he has enough quickness to stick with most of the swift guards in the league… I was most impressed with Freshman guard Troy Tabler who appears to have a very nice outside shot, and plays with the presence of an upperclassman… Todd Brown led all WSU scorers with 16 points. I was interested in seeing John Gardner, the transfer from coach Brownell’s previous team (UNC Wilmington), but evidently he didn’t see any action due to injury… It’s interesting to note that WSU now has five players that are 6’8″ or taller.
I have season tickets for both the Raiders and the Flyers (unfortunately, they don’t play each other), and I expect to attend about 10 games at each arena… All in all, it looks like it should be a decent year for college basketball in Southwest Ohio.
