The goal is to get down and dirty.

Miami University’s defense and rebounding have been spotty in general and very poor the last two games, so when the RedHawks men’s basketball team returns to action tonight at Wright State, those need to be areas of improvement.

“It’s the grunt work. A lot of people don’t like to do that,” said MU coach John Cooper, whose squad hasn’t played since taking an 83-61 defeat at Dayton on Dec. 8.

“We’ve got to understand the importance of it, the priority of it. That’s what we’ve been focusing on, but can we transfer that from practice to games? Are we tough enough? We’ll see.”

Miami (3-5) will complete a four-game road swing at WSU’s Nutter Center, looking to end a three-game losing streak. Eight of its next 10 contests will be at Millett Hall.

“It’ll be nice to get home,” Cooper said. “It’s been a long time. Too long.”

Junior guard Quinten Rollins believes the RedHawks have had a productive break. After a week of exams, the team has buckled down in practice.

“We’ve been getting a chance to find ourselves and improve our game,” Rollins said. “What we’ve been working on this whole break is just competitiveness. We’ve been doing competitive drills for running, picking up the intensity.

“We started off the season strong, then we’ve been kind of lackadaisical the last three games. We want to get back to where we can dominate games like we did before.”

MU begins Mid-American Conference play at home against Northern Illinois on Jan. 9. The RedHawks will host Illinois Chicago (Saturday), Wilmington (Dec. 30) and Massachusetts (Jan. 2) before the Huskies come to Oxford.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” Cooper said. “I thought maybe we were starting to round into what we were going to be, then we lost Bill (Edwards to a knee injury). We’re evolving. A lot of teams know who they are right now. We’re not one of those teams.”

Wright State (7-3) has won its last two matchups against Miami, but is 0-2 against the MAC this season, losing to Central Michigan and Bowling Green.

The Raiders are allowing 55.5 points per game and holding opponents to 39.8-percent shooting. They’ve given up 60-plus points only twice.