Friday, March 7th, 6:00 p.m. (et).

FACTS & STATS: Site: Hinkle Fieldhouse (11,043) -- Indianapolis, Indiana. Television: Local. Home Record: Valpo 13-4, WSU 13-3. Away Record: Valpo 5-8, WSU 7-6. Neutral Record: Valpo 2-0, WSU 1-0. Conference Record: Valpo 9-9, WSU 12-6. Series Record: Wright State leads, 5-4.

GAME NOTES: The defending Horizon League Tournament champion Wright State Raiders continue their pursuit of back-to-back crowns this evening as they challenge the Crusaders of Valparaiso in the second round of the 29th annual event at Hinkle Fieldhouse. This year's third seed, WSU easily dismissed Detroit on Tuesday with a 60-37 finish in order to snap what had become a three-game slide to close out the regular season. The 37 points allowed by Wright State tied the lowest total ever in the 38-year history of the program. As for the sixth-seeded Crusaders, they showed Wisconsin-Green Bay the door in the first round of the tourney a few days ago with a 75-67 triumph, giving the team its first HL Tournament victory ever after coming over from the Mid- Continent Conference. Wright State leads the all-time series with the Crusaders by a count of 5-4 at the moment, but Valpo swept the regular-season series by taking out the Raiders in the final game of the regular season last weekend with a 75-73 overtime affair at home. The winner of this matchup will take on second-seeded Cleveland State in the semifinals on Saturday afternoon.

Five players scored in double figures for Valpo on Tuesday, beginning with Shawn Huff who tallied 16 points and grabbed seven rebounds to try and make up for his poor 3-of-10 shooting performance from the field. Urule Igbavboa recorded a double-double with 14 points and a team-best 10 boards, followed by Jarryd Loyd and Jake Diebler with 13 points apiece, and Bryan Bouchie who added 11 points as the team survived 37.7 percent shooting from the field and 4-of-16 beyond the three-point line by outscoring UWGB 31-12 at the charity stripe. Just like the season overall, scoring is very well distributed over several players, with Huff topping the scoring list with his 12.6 ppg on the strength of 48.5 percent three-point shooting. Loyd comes off the bench to chip in 11.7 ppg, followed by Igbavboa with 10.3 ppg and a team-best 7.4 rpg as the squad comes up with 71.1 ppg.

It was not enough for the Raiders to limit Detroit to just nine field goals in the first half, Wright State had to intensify the defense after the break and hold the Titans to a mere five field goals as the home team cruised to the 23- point win. Scottie Wilson responded with 15 points and nine rebounds for the Raiders and Vaughn Duggins made good on 3-of-4 shots behind the three-point line on his way with 12 points of his own. By using the same line up in almost every game this season, the Raiders afforded themselves a consistency that few teams in the Horizon League could match. Paced by Duggins and Todd Brown with scoring averages of 13.9 and 12.7 ppg, respectively, the Raiders made a conscious effort to control the tempo and make games low scoring as often as possible. To that end, the team produced just 62.6 ppg this year, but has surrendered a mere 60.0 ppg as well.

It is hard to defeat one team three times in the same season and Valpo showed a few cracks in the armor in the most recent meeting between these squads less than a week ago when they went to overtime, so WSU is due to come out on top.

Predicted Outcome

Wright State 65, Valparaiso 59