Oct. 18 — Earlier this month, schedules were released for all Division I college basketball, and the Valparaiso University Beacons of the Missouri Valley Conference will play Missouri State on New Year’s Day.
A former standout player at Joplin High School and then a member of the Link Academy program in Branson, All Wright will be at the Great Southern Bank Arena in Springfield that evening in a Valparaiso uniform.
“It’s a really great opportunity for me and my family to play close to home. Especially at the Division I level. It will be a great experience to come back close to home and be able to show off in front of my hometown fans. “Wright said.
Valparaiso has a busy time over the holidays as it plays at Western Michigan on Friday, December 20th, then returns home on Sunday, December 22nd. There is a bye week before the team heads to Bradley University on Dec. 29 and then travels. in Missouri to face the Bears on Wednesday, January 1st.
The game against Missouri State is scheduled for 7 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN+.
The team’s regular season begins Nov. 4 with a game at Liberty University in the Total Athlete Tip-Off in Xenia, Ohio, at John Wooden Family Fieldhouse.
Wright can be seen for the first time on a Division I field when the Beacons host Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College for an exhibition contest in less than two weeks in Valparaiso, Indiana. There is no live broadcast of this game, but it can be found on the radio.
Wright’s junior season with the Eagles saw him put up 26 points per game. In preparation for Link Year, he averaged 15 points per game and had seven assists in one contest, demonstrating his ability to find the open man and share the ball.
“Practices here have been going well. We’ve been fitting in well,” Wright said. “I feel like I really found my rhythm over the summer since I had those two months to find a rhythm and adapt to the physicality of the game and the speed of the game.”
At Valpo, he plays under head coach Roger Powell Jr. Wright noted that Powell has already taught him a lot and the focus going into his first year is to stay grounded in the details of the game.
Powell will be in his second year as head coach after serving as an assistant at Gonzaga under Mark Few from 2019 to 2023. Powell spent one season in the NBA in the Utah Jazz organization in 2006 as a player.
“I learned a lot from Coach Powell. The most important thing is understanding the little things. It’s the little details that are going to win you games,” Wright said. “Sliding in the gap, shading in transition, there’s a lot of details in the game that a lot of people don’t see that are really important.”
Wright didn’t talk about potential playing time for him as a true freshman or what that might look like. Valpo returns six players – four with significant playing time – from last year’s roster and has 11 newcomers, including Wright. The Beacons graduated three seniors.
Darius DeAveiro returns after averaging 7.9 ppg and 5.3 ppg as a junior at guard. Isaiah Stafford, a returning senior, averaged 17 points per game last year also as a guard.
Cooper Schwieger, a 6-foot-10 sophomore forward, was named All-Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Year last year when he averaged 13 points and 5.4 rebounds per game. He shot 50% from the floor and 36% from 3-point range. Kasper Sepp is another returning player who saw action as a freshman. His role was primarily off the bench as he only started 15 of the 28 games he played and averaged 4 points and 4 rebounds from the forward position.
Wright has an opportunity to prove himself as one of the newcomers to land a starting role among these three key assets in the 2023-24 season that saw the Beacons go 7-25 and finish at the bottom of the MVC standings.
“For me, it’s just going to be a matter of consistency. I’ve shown flashes of my scoring ability. … Being able to get guys to open up and really develop as a playmaker as a whole “Consistency is going to be a big thing for me this year, especially if we really want to win some games and get to March (Madness),” Wright said.
