“It was a tough point in my career, I’ll tell you that. But I also learned a bunch about myself. It made me a better coach. Even though it was an awful experience, I wouldn’t trade it because I know it was good for me,” he said.
“You figure out what’s important to you. In your personal life, you realize other things are more important. It just gives you perspective.”
A commitment to keeping his priorities in order has helped the 50-year-old Nagy navigate the ups and downs of the Raiders’ season so far.
They won six of their first seven games, matching their best start since 2000, but they’ve suffered convincing defeats in their last three outings. Through both stretches, though, Nagy has emphasized the need to keep working on the team’s deficiencies and not get too caught up in immediate results.
“The fact of the matter is we’re 6-4. It’s not like we’re 1-6. We’re still in a good spot. We don’t need to panic,” he said. “There are some things that have to be fixed. You can fall apart and start pointing fingers or you can pull together. Those are the two options you have. You’re going to do one or the other.
“We have a pretty tight group. Their hearts are good. They want to do the right thing. They want to please me. That’s why I have a lot of hope for them, and I believe we’re going to be a really good team.”
The Raiders are coming off road losses to Georgia State (81-74), Penn State (72-50) and Loyola (77-64) where they trailed by at least 21 points in each game. And while they probably won’t face a tougher three-game stretch all season, they’ve been getting lit up on defense.
“Like most players do — and I’ve coached so many of them — they tend to look at themselves mainly by how they play offensively to say whether they’ve had a good game. We’re just trying to get that mentality out of them. The main thing is to be great defensively, don’t worry about offense. But we’ve let the offensive end affect the defensive end,” Nagy said.
The defensive woes partially stem from a lack of size. Not having a rim protector means foes can attack the basket without worrying about getting swatted.
But while they are athletic enough to be good defensively, Nagy sometimes questions whether the desire is there.
They rank 272nd out of 351 Division I teams in field-goal percentage defense, allowing opponents to connect at a 45.9 clip.
They’re giving up 74.4 points per game, which is 228th nationally.
“You can say one thing, but how you play really says everything. And we don’t believe to the depths of our core that defense is the answer,” Nagy said. “We can get there. I think we have tremendous individual defenders. But we have a lot of guys who aren’t playing to their ability on the defensive end.”
Nagy doesn’t hold back with his players, but he also doesn’t believe in ripping into them.
“I just told them, ‘It doesn’t matter how we’re playing right now. We’re struggling and we’re trying to figure things out. The most important thing is that we don’t splinter and that we be dedicated to being great defensively, and the offense and all that stuff will follow that.’ ”
NEXT GAME
Who: Urbana University at Wright State
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Nutter Center
TV/Radio: ESPN3/ 106.5-FM
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