PHILADELPHIA — Virginia coach Ryan Odom was on the other side of this kind of game in the past.

In fact, he did it quite famously to the Cavaliers in 2018, when Maryland-Baltimore County became the first No. 16 seed to topple a No. 1. That feat took him to Utah State, Virginia Commonwealth, and ultimately to the big stage in Charlottesville last summer.

Now here he was with the third-seeded Cavaliers, in South Philadelphia after finishing second to mighty Duke in the Atlantic Coast Conference. They didn’t make the NCAA Tournament last season, sent sideways by coach Tony Bennett’s sudden retirement. Nor had they gone past the first round since 2019, when they won the national title in one of college hoops’ great redemption stories.

Well, there might have been an old ghost in one of the equipment bags.

Wright State gave Virginia all it could handle, and the full-house crowd a thrill, before the favorites took control late for an 82-73 win Friday afternoon in the Midwest Region game.

“It’s not meant to be easy,” Odom said. “It’s meant to be hard, and you’re going to have to fight for something that you want, and you have to go for it in these moments. And I think that’s just what our guys did.”

The Raiders led 43-38 at halftime and 61-58 with 11 minutes, 8 seconds left in the second half before Virginia scored the game’s next nine points. Wright State then charged back take a 70-67 with 5:32 left, helped by a technical foul on Virginia guard Sam Lewis.

That proved the turning point. Cavaliers guard Jacari White scored eight of his game-high 26 points from there on, while his team’s defense held the Raiders to just one made basket.

“The first game is always the hardest,” said Virginia forward Malik Thomas, whose 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting included three 3-pointers. “I think that as a team, we were a little bit nervous. … After we got those jitters out and we started to play our basketball and come together, we were able to string some stops together and hit some big shots.”

Michael Imariagbe was one of four Wright State players in double figures, tallying 19 points and 10 rebounds in his final college game.

“I wish we could have done a few more things to get them over the hump in this game, but I am proud to be their coach,” head coach Clint Sargent said. “I’m proud and thankful to get to do life with them. I told them I’d do anything for them, and [this is] a hard one to swallow.”

It was no surprise that Wright State had all the neutral fans in their corner, including the Miami (Ohio) and Tennessee fans who showed up early at Xfinity Mobile Arena. The Raiders were in their first NCAA Tournament in four years after winning the Horizon League. They had a 15-18 record last season.

But it was a good kind of surprise to see a big crowd in the early afternoon. Though the four teams’ campuses aren’t unreasonably far from Philadelphia, there was uncertainty about how well the fan bases would turn out. They did in the end, along with plenty of others.

They almost got what they wanted, too, until Virginia toughed it out in the end.

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