Everyone expects big things from the Wright State Raiders in coach Clint Sargent’s third season.
Wright State topped the Horizon League’s preseason poll on Oct. 7. It is the top-ranked team from the league, No. 157, in the preseason Ken Pomeroy ratings. It is also the Horizon League favorite, according to the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook.
What does all that mean for Sargent, whose team won the Horizon League regular season and tournament championships last season?
“I'd prefer people expect a lot from us versus nothing,” Sargent said on Tuesday, Oct. 13, “but ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is how your players and coaches internalize it. I just know there's always a great deal of pressure.”
There was pressure, Sargent said, when his team finished 15-18 in his first season. There’s pressure now after a 23-12 season that ended with the program’s fifth NCAA tournament appearance.
“The greatest pressure we have is the responsibility to be at our best for each other, for our families and for our fans,” Sargent said.
Sargent doesn’t want his team to fixate on the results. He wants the season to be more about the process than the results.
“That's the tricky part with all these preseason polls,” Sargent said. “It just gets you so fixated and future-focused, and all that really does is create either ego or fear. Neither one of those is going to help us be consistent.”
The next step in the process of getting ready for the 2026-27 season comes at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16, at the Nutter Center. Wright State plays Bellarmine in its only public exhibition game before the season opener against Air Force at 7 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Nutter Center.
Admission to the exhibition game is free.
Bellarmine, located in Louisville, Ky., is an Atlantic Sun Conference program that moved to Division I in the 2020-21 season. It returns two double-digit scorers, senior guard Kenyon Goodin (11.6 points per game) and junior guard Tyler Doyle (10.0) from a team that finished 13-19.
Sargent wants to see intensity from his players and a connection on the court. He saw that Saturday in a closed-door scrimmage against Ball State. He’ll hope to see the same in the final preseason tune-up, a closed-door scrimmage against Bowling Green on Oct. 25.
In the first scrimmage, Sargent said, “I felt like we were really competitively connected. We played true to our identity on both ends. We showed some teeth defensively. Maybe more importantly, I thought we were resilient in how we responded to adversity.”
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Sargent said his team is healthy entering the game Friday. His roster has nine newcomers (four freshmen and five transfers) and five returning players. Practice began Sept. 21.
“I feel like we're laying a really good foundation,” Sargent said. “You're always trying to build resiliency into the program and your team. How do you respond when things are not going well? We’re trying to be consistently intense and physical and authentic with the culture we have.”
Two Raiders earned Horizon League preseason honors: sophomore forward Kellen Pickett, the league’s freshman of the year last season, and junior guard CJ O’Hara, a transfer from Green Bay.
Pickett has an “ability to impact winning,” Sargent said, because of his versatility on defense. His offense is icing on the cake.”
“He's been a great leader,” Sargent said. “He’s definitely stepping into the void that was there when we had a lot of great leaders leave. He cares deeply about how we play as a whole, how we practice and how we act off the floor. All that stuff is so invaluable. He's definitely right where he needs to be.”
O’Hara has adapted fast to a new program and system.
“If you had asked me in the summer what he could do, I didn't quite know,” Sargent said. “I think some of it was getting his body right, but he's been one of our most consistent, competitive, driven people. You can really see how he drives winning. His teammates have a lot of confidence in him. He's competitively confident, and he has one of the smallest egos I've seen for somebody who's been an all-league player in a very good program. His teammates really respect his personality. He's just gotten better and better and more consistent. I anticipate him having a big impact on how we play this year.”
In addition to the season opener against Air Force, Wright State plays Florida Atlantic at home in the first week. The Nov. 6 game. Then there’s a road game at Toledo on Nov. 10.
Akron, St. Bonaventure, Yale, Stetson, Temple and Miami are among the other top non-conference opponents.
“It feels like a true 50-50 schedule,” Sargent said. “You could win or lose any game on the road or at home. You just have to be consistently ready. When you go into some of those power four games, you don't feel the game pressure because there's not an expectation for you to win. You're kind of playing with house money. That psychological effect for your team can sometimes help you, but I found it doesn't always equate to league play, and I want to be at our best for league play and grow with that pressure that you have to embrace.”