Another road game against a top-25 caliber opponent, another loss for the Cleveland State Vikings. CSU (6-8) battled back after spotting the Virginia Commonwealth University Rams (10-3) an early 12-0 lead, but they never could take control, and VCU went on to capture a 72-63 victory Monday night in Richmond.

VCU senior swingman Treveon Graham led all scorers with 20 points, but it was the Ram defense that ensured the result. VCU registered eight steals and held Cleveland State to 41 percent shooting. Trey Lewis scored 15 for the Vikings, but eight of those points came in the final three minutes when the contest was all but decided.

The hero of the first half was Vinny Zollo, who knocked down three triples to keep CSU within shouting distance. If not for those nine early points, this one could have turned into a Ram runaway.

VCU pushed Cleveland State to the perimeter in the early going, but the Vikings used a penetrate-and-pitch game to bend the Ram defense and find open shots late in the first half. Senior guard Charlie Lee scored 15 (his third straight 15-point effort) and added four assists, and he was able to find holes in the VCU press for much of the first half.

Unfortunately for the Viking faithful, Lee’s backcourt mate, Trey Lewis, was faced with a wall of white jerseys all night long. Lewis has been, is, and will be the focal point of every CSU opponent, and that was clear Monday night. A cadre of Ram defenders escorted Lewis across the court as Shaka Smart’s team shut down driving lanes and allowed precious few open looks.

Anton Grady saw some chances inside, but an array of long-armed VCU defenders transformed his shots into chores. He faced some of his familiar foul trouble and mustered just five points and four rebounds. Grady is a big body by Horizon League standards at 6-8/225, but he doesn’t look quite so imposing when venturing into foreign conferences.

Cleveland State did not play poorly by any means, but they couldn’t quite dictate the action, either. Their offense was as slow and deliberate as smoking a rack of ribs, and it was so by design. VCU entered the night averaging 76-plus points, and the Vikings endeavored to decelerate the pace. They did so for stretches, but not enough of them.

The greatest issue was the turnover differential. The Vikings committed 13 turnovers, including a couple gift-wrapped passes straight to Ram defenders just a hair too late for the holidays. In contrast, VCU turned it over just five times. Cleveland State entered the game averaging over nine steals per game, but pilfered just three balls on Monday.

So, yes, it’s another tough loss for Cleveland State against a quality opponent. Again they hung tough, but again they lost by more than a touchdown. Again, it’s frustrating.

The bright side is that the non-conference schedule is ultimately not significant for the Vikings. Wins are obviously better than losses, but the goal of the season is the NCAA Tournament, and the only way that CSU was ever going to make it was by winning the Horizon League tournament. They’re in the bottom half of the league standings now, but they have the pieces to pull it off.

The results thus far tell an accurate story. The Vikes have been good enough to beat bad teams like Mount Vernon Nazarene and Tiffin. They have been good enough to beat average teams like Marshall and San Francisco. They have been good enough to hang with good teams like Louisville and VCU.

They have also been bad enough to lose to Iona, Savannah State, Toledo, and Bowling Green.

This team has talent, but it lacks consistency. They never look like world-beaters, but their defense is often good enough to give them a chance. The offense, even at its best, doesn’t quite hum like a late-model Volkswagen Jetta, but maybe like an old Volkswagen bus—clunky, but it gets the job done.

The Vikings open conference play at home Friday against Milwaukee. They have 16 more games after that, 15 against conference foes. This is the part of the season that truly matters. This is the time for the Vikes to prove themselves. We’ll see if they’re up to the task.

Other Notes:

• Vinny Zollo’s 14 points were a season-high.
• VCU’s fans do a Maori-style Haka dance pre-game. I don’t quite get it, but it’s kinda cool:

• The VCU television commentators did a terrific job. They clearly did their homework on the Vikings and included a couple nice nuggets, including that Kaza Keane played at VCU last year as a member of the Illinois State Redbirds (Keane transferred to CSU).
• The VCU Peppas pep band was wonderful as well. Two noteworthy and different-as-can-be selections: Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up” and WWE superstar John Cena’s entrance music, “The Time is Now.”
• The VCU fans are major proponents of a mock clock countdown to throw off opposing offenses. Cleveland State was shrewd enough to not get tricked, save for one occasion that resulted in a Viking putback.
• Last but not least, VCU’s JeQuan Lewis has hair like Wesley Snipes’ Simon Phoenix from Demolition Man:

The post Ram Jam: Cleveland State Falls to VCU appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

While we were spending our weekends on the couch under a blanket of warm nacho cheese and cool beverage cans, the Cleveland State Vikings went to work. After a so-so start to the season, the Vikes opened Horizon League play with two wins, their first back-to-back victories since November.

They blew out Wisconsin-Milwaukee at home Friday night, and they controlled the action in their win against Illinois-Chicago in the Windy City on Sunday. CSU now sits at 8-8 for the season. Let’s take a look at how it went down over the weekend:

Friday: CSU 84, Milwaukee 57

The Vikings shot 82 percent and scored 57 points in the second half, turning a three-point halftime deficit into an 84-57 victory over the Milwaukee Panthers in CSU’s Horizon League opener. Trey Lewis scored 27 points to lead all scorers, Anton Grady notched 18 points and 8 rebounds, and Charlie Lee added 16 points as the Vikings poured it on in the second half.

Milwaukee was patient on offense in the opening 20 minutes, doing much of its damage from beyond the arc and at the free throw stripe. The Panthers hit five threes and nine free throws in the first half while holding Cleveland State to 36 percent shooting.

The second half was a different story. The Vikings shifted to a diamond press in an effort to speed the Panthers up, and it worked to perfection. The Viking guards—Lewis and Lee, as well as Andre Yates and Terrell Hales—harassed ballhandlers all over the court, leading to 16 total Milwaukee turnovers.

Milwaukee shot just 6-of-21 in the second half, while CSU lit the nets on fire to the tune of 23-of-28 shooting.

It was altogether CSU’s best game of the season not just because of the final score, but because of how they played. They swarmed on defense and were selfless on offense. The ball did not stick in the halfcourt—it hopped from Viking to Viking as though following a predetermined path.

Vikes of all sizes drove the lane with purpose and finished strong at the rim. Anton Grady overpowered the Milwaukee frontline for much of the night, and his guards did well to find him with lobs when he was fronted. He was patient in the post. His finest moment of the night came when he caught a lob, waited for a defender to fly by, took a power dribble and slammed it home (his dunk comes at the 2:45 mark of the highlights).

Lewis stole the show with 27 points, but he did not dominate the ball. He shot when he was open, swung the rock when he wasn’t, and played puppet-master throughout. He shot 2-of-4 from downtown, raising his three-point percentage to an even 47 percent.

Charlie Lee played perhaps his finest game of the season. He looks and sounds like an alpha dog, and his presence has gone a long way in steadying the CSU backcourt. The Vikings turned the ball over just five times Friday. They went into the game averaging 13 giveaways.

Coach Gary Waters highlighted the significance of his team’s first Horizon League game. “This game was vital at home,” said Waters. “In our first eight conference games, five are on the road. If we had lost this one, we had five other games on the road. That’s why this game was so vital.”

Waters also spoke about the importance of getting his team’s confidence up after a rough start: “They were feeling down still because they felt they should have won the Savannah State, Bowling Green and EIU games,” he said. “In the locker room, I told them you played some good games and some good basketball. Even those three we lost were last second losses. We didn’t play bad basketball. We just didn’t finish it.”

They finished Friday, and they kept the good ball going on the road.

SUNDAY: Cleveland State 74, Illinois-Chicago 69

Trey Lewis scored just 11 points on eight shots, but a balanced Viking attack saw Cleveland State lead the UIC Flames wire-to-wire in Chicago.

Anton Grady logged his 11th career double-double, tallying 18 points and 10 rebounds along with 3 blocks. Charlie Lee scored 18 of his own, giving him five straight games of 15-plus points. Marlin Mason added 12 points and 4 blocks before fouling out late in the second half.

Cleveland State shot 59 percent from the floor Sunday, besting Friday’s effort by 1.5 percent. They took 15 fewer shots, however, thanks to UIC’s yeomanly work on the boards. The Flames had 45 rebounds—23 on offense—while the Vikings totaled just 21. Numbers like that won’t do in the long run, but CSU was able to overcome the rebounding discrepancy in Chicago.

The game got chippy in the second half when Grady and UIC’s Jake Wiegand battled for a loose ball. Wiegand held onto Grady after the whistle, Grady took exception, and a brief skirmish broke out. Wiegand was ejected for his role in the fracas, while Grady and Lee each earned technical fouls.

Things settled down after that. Cleveland State maintained control, but couldn’t quite put the Flames away. The Vikes held a 69-59 lead with 57 seconds to go, but some missed CSU free throws and made UIC triples kept the Flames within shouting distance. The Vikings did enough to finish the job, though it was sloppier than their coach would’ve liked.

The game’s final minutes were a lesson in the importance of late-game execution and sinking free throws. Waters would have preferred a clean finish, but was pleased to leave town with a victory. After the game Waters said, “I wasn’t happy with the way the game ended, but it’s a road win and it’s nice to start Horizon League play with two wins.”

Other Notes

• Terrell Hales and Andre Yates could be a cornerback tandem. While Lewis and Lee carry most of the scoring load, Hales and Yates make it their mission to destroy the self-esteem of opposing ballhandlers. As a lover of hustle, defense, and grit, those two are among my favorites to watch. They get way down low in their stances, eyes glued to their mark’s chest, hands tracking the path of the ball at all times. Their work on D helps CSU keep the pressure on when Waters goes to his bench.
• Vinny Zollo was quiet against UIC, but he had fine games against Milwaukee and VCU. He had 14 points and 9 rebounds against VCU, and his shooting kept the Vikings in the game. He played better than his stat line (5 points, 4 rebounds) suggested against Milwaukee, and earned praise from Coach Waters in the process: “Vinny Zollo has played very well for us. He did great against VCU. If he continues to help us like that, that brings another person into the fold”
• Cleveland State had 10 blocks against UIC, their most of the season. Mason and Grady turned away seven, with reserve forward Derek Sloan adding two. The Vikings entered the game averaging just two blocks per contest.
• The UIC game was more highlight-heavy than most. Trey Lewis knocked down a fallaway three to beat the halftime buzzer, and Mason sent one shot away with authority:
  
• Cleveland State’s next game is Thursday, January 8, when they will host the Oakland Golden Grizzlies.

The post Working for the Weekend: Cleveland State Wins First Two Conference Games appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

The Cleveland State Vikings (9-8) defeated the Oakland Golden Grizzlies (5-11) in a back-and-forth matchup Thursday night at the Wolstein Center. CSU hopped on the Grizz early in the first half and led by 17 after the first eight minutes. They found themselves up by just two points with two minutes left in the game, but some clutch defense in the closing moments helped CSU beat Oakland 65-61 to remain undefeated in Horizon League play.

For the Vikings, leading scorer Trey Lewis was held scoreless on 0-of-2 shooting, and second-leading scorer Anton Grady managed just six points on 2-of-6 from the field. That would normally spell doom for CSU, but a balanced scoring attack steadied the Viking ship.

Sophomore guard Andre Yates scored all of his 14 points in the second half, with 10 coming in a four-minute flurry shortly after the intermission. Charlie Lee scored all 13 of his points in the first half and set up his teammates to the tune of 7 assists.

Trailing 63-61 with 18 seconds left in regulation, Oakland had the ball on the frontcourt baseline. They ran a clever inbounds play, lobbing a pass to 5-foot-9 guard Jahlil Felder, who was defended by the 5-foot-8 Lee in a mouse-versus-mouse-in-the-house situation. Felder caught the pass, power dribbled and elevated into Lee, but his shot was swallowed whole by the help defense of Hales, Grady, and Mason.

“I was surprised,” Lee said of the play, “because you don’t really see teams throw [lobs] to the guard, especially at his height. So when I saw that, I just tried to put my hands straight up, and then Anton and Marlin came over swinging.”

Hales came away from the pack with the ball and went coast-to-coast to lay in the clinching bucket with 10 seconds to go. Oakland’s final pleas to the basketball gods went unanswered, and the Cleveland State held on for the victory.

“That was a hard fought game,” CSU head coach Gary Waters said afterward. “[Oakland is] going to cause some people some trouble in this league. They got size, they got athleticism, and when they’re shooting it, it’s hard to guard them.

“They’re going to be a tough team to deal with.”

It looked like the Vikings would run the Golden Grizzlies clean out of Ohio in the first half. Cleveland State held Oakland scoreless for the first seven minutes of the game and had a 19-2 lead with 11:37 to go in the first half. Lee dominated the early minutes and landed the opening salvos in his big-little battle with Felder.

It was not that easy all night. A combination of sound defense, aggressive drives, and three-point shooting saw Oakland climb back into the conversation. The Golden Grizz went 10-of-11 from the free throw line in the first half—Felder was 6-of-6—and reserve guard Max Hooper connected on both of his efforts from downtown. By halftime, the Vikings 19-2 lead had become 34-30.

Waters, for one, was not surprised by Oakland’s comeback.

“The lead didn’t faze me at all,” Waters said. “I told our team—I don’t care if you look at any college basketball or pro basketball [game]—somebody gets a big lead, somebody’s going to catch it. They’re going to make a run. It’s going to happen throughout. If we got a lead, they’re going to come back and catch us; if they got a lead, we’re going to come back and catch them.

“It’s the second hit that matters.”

Cleveland State was able to make that second hit in the second half thanks in large part to Yates. His points came quickly and gave the Vikings room to breathe. He scored eight straight in 90 seconds, on a layup and two threes. That stretch put CSU up 51-40 with 14:24 to play.

“I just wanted to be more aggressive,” said Yates. “My body frame1 allows me to get to the hole and finish strong. I try my best to attack the lanes, and when I have my opportunities, I take them.”

“Andre had a fabulous game today,” Waters said. “Without Andre’s contribution, it may have been a different outcome.”

Yates’ aggressiveness was especially welcome given Lewis’ struggles. Oakland’s 6-6 forward Dante Williams shadowed the Vikings’ lead guard all night, and his length limited Lewis’ looks at the hoop. Williams did well to fight around screens and seemed to have an arm inside the white No. 3 jersey all night.

“I thought he was a key,” said Waters of Williams. “His height was a problem, and he’s mobile.”

All in all, it was a fine win for Cleveland State. Finding scoring beyond that of Lewis and Grady was a problem early in the season, but Thursday’s game continued a promising stretch of complimentary players stepping up. It was Lee’s fifth straight double-figure scoring effort. Yates has increased his point totals in each of the past three games. Hales’ nine points were the most of his young career.

The win was the Vikes’ third straight in as many conference games, but Waters isn’t getting too excited about it.

“We’ve held serve. I don’t want to make any big thing of it. Now we gotta see if we can go and steal some on the road.”

Cleveland State’s next game is at Valparaiso on Saturday, January 10. It will be broadcast on ESPN3 and also be available on AM 1220 WHKW.

1. Yates is a strongly built 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds

The post A Case of the Runs: Cleveland State edges Oakland appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

Don’t despair, Cleveland basketball fans. There’s one team with a winning record in the Forest City.

The Cleveland State Vikings (10-9, 4-1 in Horizon League) did not play outstanding basketball Wednesday night in Dayton, where they squared off with the Wright State Raiders (10-8, 2-2). They shot a cover-your-eyes bad 3-of-19 from the three-point line. They committed 15 turnovers and 19 fouls. They were outscored 15 to 7 at the free throw stripe. But unlike, ahem, some teams around town, the Vikings made plays when it counted and defeated the Raiders 55-50.

Neither team scored for two and a half minutes of second-half play after a Marlin Mason layup made the score 49-48 in Wright State’s favor. WSU’s Kendall Griffin split a pair of free throws to put the Raiders up by two with 1:31 to play, and the Vikings were caught in a tough spot.

The offense that looked so sloppy for much of the second half came alive in the closing minutes. Mason found Andre Yates all alone on the left wing, and Yates—who had scored exactly zero points in the game’s first 38-and-a-half minutes—knocked down a three-ball to put CSU up by one with 1:19 to go.

Wright State missed a three on its next possession, Anton Grady hauled in the rebound, and Gary Waters called timeout. The Vikings worked the clock, and the ball swung to Trey Lewis. Lewis, who missed all six of his tries from long range, drove inside, took a bump, made the layup, and got three the hard way to put the Vikes up four with 24 seconds to go.

Wright State missed one last three and Cleveland State got the rebound. Charlie Lee split two freebies to set the final margin, and the Vikings climbed back over .500 for the season.

It wasn’t pretty, but it’ll do. As poorly as the Vikes shot from outside, they converted well in the paint, and those inside conversions lifted them to nearly 48 percent from the field. Anton Grady registered a double-double, scoring 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting and pulling down 10 rebounds. He scored on muscular drop steps and feathery jumpers, and provided a steady offensive presence throughout.

Marlin Mason scored 14, including two of CSU’s three made triples. Trey Lewis added 13, representing a nice bounce back after scoring 5 in the past two games combined. The Viking bench was largely ineffective, though Demonte Flannigan scored three first-half buckets to give CSU an early lift.

The win improves the Vikings’ road record to 3-7. Most of their wounds were self-inflicted in Dayton, and they did well to come away with a victory. They did not force turnovers at their usual rate, but their defense forced Wright State to burn clock and take tough shots.

The Raiders, for their part, will look at this game as one that got away. They shot 15-of-24 from the line, with three misses in the final four minutes. Two of the misses were by Michael Karena on the front end of one-and-ones. Karena played well—he was the game’s high scorer with 18—but those late clankers will be the shots that he remembers most.

Cleveland State is now ranked second in the Horizon League behind only 3-0 Green Bay, the preseason favorite. The Vikings’ next game is Saturday, January 17, at Youngstown State.

Other Notes

• The win was extra sweet for Andre Yates, who was playing in his hometown. Yates attended Dayton Dunbar High, and led his team to a 28-0 record and a state championship in 2012.
• Charlie Lee scored just one point on 0-of-4 shooting, ending a streak of seven consecutive double-digit scoring efforts. He also received a technical in the first half for knocking the ball out of a Raider’s hands after being whistled for a foul.
• A member of the Wright State ROTC rappelled down from the rafters to present the game ball to the officials, which is the most inventive bit of pregame ceremony that I have ever seen. Well done.
• Tom Hanks—as in Hollywood actor Tom Hanks, star of Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, and Toy Story—is a major supporter of Wright State’s “Rise.Shine” campaign, and a commercial starring Hanks ran during the telecast. I have no idea when or how this connection was forged, but it was. Check it out:

• Vinny Zollo had a rough night. He scored two points and committed two fouls. Worse, the Wright State announcers mispronounced his surname all night, saying “ZAH-lo” instead of “ZO-lo.” Chin up, Vin.
• The Viking bench did not add much to the action. Freshman guard/Tasmanian devil Terrell Hales went scoreless, as did Kaza Keane. Again: despite the ineffective bench, the frigid long-range shooting, the turnovers, and the fouls, Cleveland State got a victory. These guys will have something to say about how the Horizon League standings shake out.

The post Who’s Over .500? These Guys! Cleveland State beats Wright State appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

Don’t look now, but the Cleveland State Vikings have won five of their last six and are in first place in the Horizon League. The Vikes (11-9, 5-1 Horizon League) have come alive in conference play after an up-and-down first half of the season, and claimed their second straight road win by defeating the Youngstown State Penguins (9-12, 0-6) Saturday night, 74-61.

After scoring 18 points in the last three games combined, including an o-fer against Oakland, Trey Lewis went off for 29 in Youngstown. He scored 16 in the first half, and shot 7-of-13 from beyond the arc for the game. The Penguins doubled Anton Grady in the post early and often, giving Lewis and the Viking guards plenty of room to cook with.

Despite the Penguins’ focus on him, Grady notched a workmanlike double-double, scoring 11 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. He added three assists, three steals, and a block, and doubtless had more influence than the Penguins would have liked. He also helped hold YSU’s Bobby Cain, a 6-10 center, to 11 points on 4-of-8 shooting. Hain is averaging a 14.9 points, eighth in the Horizon League, and 7.9 rebounds, first in the conference.

The final scoreline flatters the Penguins, who enjoyed an 8-2 lead after the first five minutes. The Vikings had open looks all game long, and came alive when their jumpers started falling. They especially dominated the game’s second two acts as they leveraged the threat of their outside shooting to drive inside and finish at the rim. Cleveland State led 31-22 at halftime, and were ahead by as much as 20 in the second half.

Youngstown State scored six straight to open the second stanza, prompting a Gary Waters timeout. The Vikings stretched their lead to 40-30 in the ensuing three minutes, with Lewis, Charlie Lee, Anton Grady, and Marlin Mason all scoring. CSU kept the Penguins at arm’s length for the rest of the game.

Even when their shots weren’t falling, Cleveland State’s defense was sound. Youngstown State shot nearly 49 percent from the floor, but the Vikes forced 17 Penguin turnovers, with 11 coming on steals. In addition to Anton Grady’s three pilfers, Marlin Mason, Trey Lewis, and Andre Yates each had two. CSU took care of the ball themslves, turning it over just eight times.

The Vikings’ passing game shone in the second half. The Vikes’ offense can be prone to fits of clunkiness, and they go minutes at a time without scoring. Saturday, however, the ball whipped with purpose around the perimeter and into the lane, and a slew of smart passes led to easy buckets. Cleveland State converted only one layup in the first half, but scored on five layups and a dunk in the second.

The 13-point margin of victory is the Vikes’ largest since trouncing Milwaukee in the conference opener, and their sixth double-digit win of the season.

Other notes

• The highlight of the game came when Trey Lewis drove the left side of the lane and lobbed an alley-oop for Marlin Mason, who cut in from the baseline and slammed it home. (Alas, Horizon League highlights are tough to come by.)
• Vinny Zollo scored 11 and had 4 rebounds off the bench, a nice bounce-back from his subpar effort against Wright State.
• Anton Grady has avoided foul trouble in each of the past three games. In a related story, he has averaged 15.3 points and 8.3 rebounds in that time.
• Both Andre Yates and Terrell Hales went down with ankle/leg injuries. If they miss a substantial amount of time, Kaza Keane and Kenny Carpenter are the next men up on the backcourt depth chart. Trey Lewis and Charlie Lee have each played 32-plus minutes in each of the past nine games, and the Vikes have struggled to get bench production even when healthy.
• To that end: the aforementioned Vinny Zollo had 11 points off the bench. The Vikings had 12 bench points total. You do the math.
•  It was a comprehensive win for CSU. In addition to points, they bettered Youngstown State in rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks.

Cleveland State’s next game is Friday, January 23, at home against the Detroit Titans.

The post Psst: Cleveland State Beats Youngstown State to win five of last six appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

During the national anthem Friday night at the Wolstein Center, Cleveland State guard Charlie Lee stretched his ankles. He put his right foot behind him and then his left, rotating each to warm up his lower joints as he surveyed his teammates. With two Vikings dealing with ankle issues—Andre Yates missed the game with a high ankle sprain, and Terrell Hales played despite his own sprain—and a third, Marlin Mason, missing the game with illness, who would step up for the Vikings?

It turned out to be the usual suspects: Trey Lewis, Anton Grady, and Lee himself. That trio combined for 60 points and 27 rebounds to lead the Cleveland State Vikings (12-9, 6-1 Horizon League) to a 70-66 victory over the Detroit Titans (10-11, 3-3) Friday night at the Wolstein Center. With the win, Cleveland State stays atop the Horizon League and has won six of seven. The Vikes share the top spot in the conference with Green Bay, who defeated Valparaiso Friday.

Lewis scored 30 and grabbed a season-high 8 rebounds to lead the Vikings against Detroit. He shot 9-of-19, including 5-of-11 from beyond the arc. Grady scored 15 and hauled in a career-high 14 boards, while Lee scored 15 of his own, with 13 coming in the second half.

The Vikings held a sort of protest against free throw shooting in the first half, converting just 4-of-14 from the line. They rallied to sink 16-of-19 freebies in the second half, including their last 11, to finish the job against a stubborn Detroit team.

The Titans and Vikings looking like mirror images in the first half, both sides pressing and trapping full-court. Detroit beat Cleveland State up on the glass early, grabbing three offensive rebounds in the first three minutes and eight in the first half overall. The Titans could not capitalize, as they shot an icy 10-of-29 from the field in the opening period.

The Vikings grew more comfortable as play opened up. Cleveland State managed just 14 points in the first 13 minutes, but came alive for 16 over the half’s final seven minutes. The Titans harassed Anton Grady early via ball denial and double teams, but he notched two buckets in 40 seconds late in the half—the first a three-point play, the second a dunk, and both coming on feeds from guard Kaza Keane.

The Vikes finished the half on an 11-5 mini-run, and went into the intermission with a 30-28 advantage.

The Titans came out of the locker room as though Denzel Washington gave the halftime address. They turned a two-point deficit into a 43-34 lead in six minutes, with Chris Jenkins hitting two triples. CSU made just one field goal during that stretch. Waters called a timeout to halt the run, but didn’t have any earth-shattering words for his club.

“He didn’t really tell us much,” Anton Grady said. “He jumped on us. As you see, it helped. He looked us in our eyes and gave us that look.”

The Vikings got the message and climbed back into the contest. Again it was Grady providing a steadying presence. He scored a bucket on a nifty side-step move, swatted a Titan shot, and drew a foul on back-to-back-to-back possessions. He notched another three-point play soon thereafter, hammering a two-handed dunk through contact off of a feed from Derek Sloan to make it 45-39.

“I thought that (block) changed the whole complexion (of the game),” said Waters.

A Lee jumper brought the Vikes within four, but they couldn’t quite get over the hump. CSU was within five points of the Titans for five minutes of game time. They finally took the lead back when Trey Lewis hit a double-pump layup in traffic with 4:52 to go, part of a 9-0 run that saw Cleveland State go ahead 56-52.

Two Lee free throws gave CSU a 62-55 lead with 1:12 to go, but the game was not yet decided. A flurry of (questionable) whistles against the Vikes and made buckets by the Titans kept the result in question. In a delicious bit of karma, Cleveland State needed to sink their free throws before they could put the game on ice. They put the ball in Lewis’ and Lee’s hands, and the lead guards closed the freezer door on the Titans.

“Coach has been doing a really good job lately of teaching us how to expect to win,” said Lewis.

“I don’t think we ever expected to lose,” Grady went on. “We never doubted one time that we would win this game.”

Other Notes:

• Vinny Zollo and Kaza Keane started in place of Mason and Yates. Zollo went scoreless and grabbed four rebounds in 14 minutes, while Keane scored two and had four assists and four rebounds in 28 minutes. Detroit played a lot of four-guard lineups.
• Detroit’s Juwan Howard, Jr. entered the game averaging 18.5 points per game, second in the conference. He scored 14 against CSU on just 4-of-12 shooting, and was a picture of frustration for much of the night.
• Marlin Mason spent time in the hospital, and underwent a spinal tap to test for meningitis. The team visited while he was undergoing treatment. He was released Friday, attended the game, and is cleared to play going forward.
• The timetable for Yates’ is unclear, though Waters said that high ankle sprains generally take two to three weeks to recover from.
• Demonte Flannigan played only two minutes. The reason, per Waters: “He didn’t feel like playing today. It was one of his days off. You get that sometimes.” There was more than a hint of sarcasm in that response.
• Cleveland State’s only loss of the past seven games was by two points, on the road, against a now-18-4 Valparaiso team.
• Gary Waters, when asked if he had any comment on the officiating: “No, can’t do that.” The fans could, and the refs were booed off the floor.
• During a timeout promotion that featured a three-point contest between two fans, a ball bounced into the Detroit huddle. A red-jerseyed player grabbed the ball and angrily chucked it toward the Viking bench. Ah, home court advantage.
• There was a strong contingent of students in the crowd. Said Lewis: “We’re feeding off of that energy.”
• Detroit opened the second half with a turnover, so your faithful scribe reached out to Arby’s for comment. America’s finest fast food roast beef resource came through in fine form:

@wjcgibson Did someone say turnover?

— Arby's (@Arbys) January 24, 2015

The post Dismember the Titans: Cleveland State beats Detroit to win third straight appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

LeBron James, in town for the Cavaliers’ game against the Detroit Pistons Tuesday, was in attendance as the Cleveland State Vikings took on the Oakland Golden Grizzlies in Rochester, Michigan Monday night. The young Vikings would have done well to play like LeBron’s Cavaliers as they looked to win their fourth straight game and sweep the season series with Oakland.

The good news is that the Vikings did play a bit like the Cavaliers. The bad news is they resembled the Cavs of the season’s first week more than the last one.

Foul trouble put CSU (12-10, 6-2 Horizon League) behind the eight-ball early, and their comeback attempt fell short as they lost to the Oakland Golden Grizzlies (9-12, 3-3) 59-56 at the O’rena. The defeat snaps a three-game winning streak for the Vikings.

CSU’s next game is at home Saturday at 2 p.m. against the Green Bay Phoenix, who are in first place in the conference at 6-1 and 17-4 overall.

Kahlil Felder, Jalen Hayes, and Corey Petros scored 45 for the Grizz, with Felder and Hayes combining to shoot 18-of-23 from the free throw line. Kaza Keane and Anton Grady filled the stat sheet to capacity for CSU: Keane scored 16 to go with 6 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals, while Grady logged 12 points, 10 rebounds, 5 steals, 4 assists, and 3 blocks. Trey Lewis and Charlie Lee struggled for the Vikings, totaling 11 points and 8 turnovers.

Oakland shot 21-of-28 from the line for the game, while Cleveland State was just 6-of-7.

As was the case in the teams’ first meeting in Cleveland, this one came down to the final possessions. A Grady layup gave CSU a 56-55 lead, but Felder came right back with a runner to put Oakland on top 57-56 with 33 seconds left. After a Trey Lewis drive into contact (somehow, egregiously, regrettably) yielded no whistle, Felder hit two free throws to make it a three-point game with 16 seconds to play. Lewis’ leaning triple try bounced off of the iron, and the Grizz held on for the victory.

Oakland improved to 8-3 at home, while Cleveland State’s road record dropped to 4-8. The loss knocks CSU down to second place in the conference, where they are tied with Valparaiso at 6-2.

The Vikings went into the intermission trailing 33-22, and it could have been much worse than that. Vinny Zollo, starting in place of the ill Marlin Mason,1 picked up two quick fouls, and Anton Grady followed suit shortly thereafter. Both were taken out, leaving a thin Viking frontcourt a bit thinner. Demonte Flannigan and Aaron Scales were forced into service off the bench, and they faced the unenviable task of containing Petros, Oakland’s 6-foot-10, 255-pound center.

Petros leveraged his size advantage into 10 points and 5 rebounds in the first half, but it wasn’t just the big man hurting CSU. Felder, a 5-foot-9 guard, scored 9 points in the game’s first 20 minutes and added 3 rebounds and 3 assists. His penetration punctured the Viking defense and led to open looks all over the court for Oakland.

Cleveland State struggled to score without Grady. Trey Lewis scored exactly zero points in the first period, his third straight scoreless half against the Golden Grizzlies, and just 5 on the evening. As in the teams’ first matchup, 6-foot-6 Dante Williams stuck to Lewis like cellophane to a melted Twix. Williams totaled four steals—all in the first half—and Lewis wore a wary expression throughout.

I blame DJones for CSU's loss MT @GoldenGrizzlies: If you don't think Oakland is fun to watch, just ask @KingJames pic.twitter.com/cW5VNrCu7r

— Will Gibson (@wjcgibson) January 27, 2015

The halftime buzzer was a welcome sound for the Vikings, who finished the half on a 3-minute-37-second scoring drought. CSU committed nine fouls and nine turnovers in the first half. They shot a respectable 42 percent in the first half, but the fouls and fumbles ensured a tough climb back.

The Vikes sharpened their horns at halftime and came out of the tunnel ready to play. They scored the first 9 points of the second period, with Vinny Zollo notching a quick 7. The CSU defense set the tone, forcing a shot clock violation and shutting out Oakland for the half’s first four minutes.

Kaza Keane was the quiet hero of the resurgence, as his passes unlocked the Oakland defense and freed up Vikes for scores. Keane had seen his minutes drop with the ascendance of freshman guard Terrell Hales, but with Hales and Andre Yates hobbled by ankle injuries, the Illinois State transfer and Canadian national maximized his court time. He passed up open jumpers time and again, preferring to dive into the teeth of the defense, either to mine open cavities for his teammates or finish at the rim himself. His 16 points and 6 assists were both season highs.

Grady made up for his first half truancy with a productive second half, scoring 8 of his 12 points after the intermission. His presence also helped neutralized Petros, who managed just 4 points and 4 rebounds in the second period. Grady’s arms seemed to stretch from sideline to sideline as he stole 4 balls and blocked 3 more after halftime.

Oakland parried and returned the punches, holding Cleveland State scoreless for two minutes as they extended their lead to 48-41. The Golden Grizz only made six field goals in the second half, instead doing most of their damage from the charity stripe. Hayes scored 9 and Felder 7 in the second half for the Golden Grizz, who sank 13-of-18 second half free throws.

Keane and Grady combined for 10 points in the final 9 minutes to pull CSU back into the contest, but the Vikings were unable to overcome the free throw disparity and their early self-inflicted wounds.

It is a disappointing loss for the Vikings, who have now won six of their last eight, all in conference. They have nine games left to play, with much of the season’s story yet to be written. They have come a long way since the season opener, but have farther to go if they intend to taste the postseason.

That’s not a bad spot to be in for a Cleveland basketball team. LeBron himself could tell the Vikings something about that.

1. Mason was in the hospital last week with flu-like symptoms and underwent a spinal tap to test for meningitis. He has been cleared to play and could return Saturday.

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Last season, a surging Cleveland State team hosted Green Bay in mid-February. The Vikings were on a seven-game winning streak, including five on the road. It didn’t matter. The Phoenix came into Cleveland and embarrassed CSU. They led by 13 at the half and won by 14. Green Bay bested Cleveland State in field goal percentage, free throws made, rebounding, assists, blocks—they ran the Vikes off the court.

On Saturday afternoon, the Phoenix came to town with a 17-4 record, first place in the Horizon League, and returning four starters from last year’s team. Cleveland State had payback on the brain, and got it by delivering its most impressive performance of the season.

The Vikings (13-10, 7-2 Horizon League) dominated the Phoenix (17-5, 6-2), capturing a 76-62 victory that that puts them back on top of the conference in a tie with Valparaiso. Green Bay led the game for just 22 seconds after scoring the opening basket.

Trey Lewis scored 25 points and snatched a career-high 12 rebounds for his first career double-double, and Anton Grady scored 24. Charlie Lee chipped in 12 points and 7 assists. CSU shot 57 percent for the game while holding the Phoenix to 44 percent.

Cleveland State played before its largest, loudest crowd of the season. Surely the atmosphere helped them get up for the game, right?

“I mean, no,” said Anton Grady matter-of-factly. “We appreciate the crowd coming, (but) last year (Green Bay) came in here and dominated us. That right there got us up.

“We could have played in an empty gym, and we would’ve been ready to play.”

The Vikings’ thirst for revenge was evident from the opening tip. They picked up floor burns diving after loose balls. The bench exploded after hustle plays. CSU’s defense was as sound as ever, and they came out shooting hotter than a Remington in Death Valley.

Cleveland State made its first four shots and 10 of the first 13. Save for a stretch of marshmallowy defense in the opening minutes, Cleveland State could do no wrong, with Lewis and Grady leading the way. The Viking lead reached 17 points midway through the first half, and the Vikings led 32-21 going into the half.

“This was a huge game for us,” said Lewis. “I was telling Anton right before the game started, ‘You remember what happened last year,’ and that was our mindset coming into this game. They dominated us last year, and we came out with the mindset that we would dominate this year.”

The most important story may have been the ineffectiveness of Sykes, who entered the game as the Horizon League scoring leader at 19.2 per game. He picked up his second foul with 6:01 remaining and sat for five minutes. He finished the first half with no field goal attempts, and his only two points in the period came on free throws after Kaza Keane fouled him on a late three-ball.

“We shut him down,” Vikings head coach Gary Waters said of Sykes, who finished with 11 points. “I thought we did a great job. I thought our focus was strong, I thought everybody committed to helping the person that was guarding him.”

The Phoenix rose in the second half, prompting a Waters timeout with a 6-0 run in the first two minutes. Cleveland State regrouped defensively, holding Green Bay to four points in the next six minutes. Lewis and Grady ensured that the Vikings would stay on top, as they combined to score all of CSU’s points during a 14-4 run. Four of those buckets came on assists from Lee, and the Vikings led 46-31 with 12:32 remaining.

Green Bay mixed up its defenses in an effort to slow the Vikes down, including a 1-2-2 fullcourt trap, but none were able to dissuade the Vikings offensive attack, least of all Anton Grady. The Phoenix did not double-team Grady when he got cooking inside, which only encouraged the 6-foot-8 forward. He scored 15 of his 24 in the second half, and shot 8-of-13 from the floor and 8-of-11 from the line for the game.

“Through the whole Horizon League, (teams have) been throwing a double team,” said Grady. “Once I got going and I saw they stayed man to man, my eyes lit up a little more and I said thank you.”

Green Bay had one last run in them, an 8-1 spell that narrowed the deficit to 47-39. The Vikings regained control with a 12-3 run that put them ahead 59-42 with 6:16 left in the contest. Andre Yates spearheaded that last sequence with a three-point play, and the Phoenix would never come closer than 11 after that.

Green Bay tried to extend the game by fouling, but the Vikings sank 11 of their last 14 free throws to finish the job.

It was an encouraging victory for the Vikings, who have seven more conference games on the schedule. Two of the last three games will be against Green Bay and Valparaiso, and those matchups could decide who gets the number one seed in the Horizon League tournament. Valpo and Green Bay have more impressive overall records, but Cleveland State declared Saturday that they are not to be overlooked.

Other Notes:

• Marlin Mason did not play for the third straight game as he continues to recover from an illness. He underwent a second spinal tap Thursday, which Waters said brought him significant relief. The timeline for his return is still uncertain.
• Andre Yates played 17 minutes, his most action since suffering an ankle injury against Youngstown State on January 17. Waters didn’t want to play him, saying that Yates is about 75 percent healthy, but he went with the lefty sophomore for much of the second half.
• A major reason for Yates’ playing so much was that Waters didn’t think Terrell Hales was quite ready for a major conference game. The freshman played just three minutes, all in the first half.
• Part of Lewis’ strong rebounding day was his being matched up against Green Bay swingman Jordan Fouse for much of the game. Fouse had 18 rebounds in two games against CSU last year, and crashed the offensive glass often Saturday, but Lewis and the CSU guards did well to box him out.
• Roughly a dozen mascots were on hand to celebrate Magnus the Viking’s birthday, including Webster the Akron RubberDuck, Skipper of the Lake County Captains, and Chomps of the Cleveland Browns. They took part in plenty of festivities, including a halftime basketball game.

Halftime = mascot basketball. It's a good day to be in the crowd pic.twitter.com/mdXWkjZwXf

— Will Gibson (@wjcgibson) January 31, 2015

The post Cleveland State sends Green Bay packing appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

Let me let you in on a little secret, sports fans: I did not expect to take the Cleveland State Vikings all that seriously when I took on the task of covering them this season. We at WFNY were glad to have access to the team, but we understood that the Vikings are not the biggest needle-mover in town.

With that in mind, we thought to approach our coverage with some levity, trying to find a secondary hook to draw in readers. I thought I might give the players silly nicknames, crack wise on Horizon League haircuts, or dive into deep analysis of Gary Waters’ wardrobe.

Some of this would have been out of necessity. I am not a Cleveland State grad, and I have not kept my finger on the Viking pulse over the past few years. In truth, I didn’t know much about this team, much less how to cover them. When I wrote about why people should care about CSU before the season, I was largely talking out of my backside in hopes that it would all come true.

But then a funny thing happened. The more I watched these guys play, the more I came to respect them―the more they forced me to respect them. I came to see that their play is the sort that I have come to love: defense-first, hard-nosed, tough. I see guys like 5-foot-8 point guard Charlie Lee going hard for all 40 minutes. I see sophomore Andre Yates careening into opponents despite an injured wrist. I see freshman guard Terrell Hales tearing after loose balls like Ron Swanson after the last strip of bacon.

I have listened to them in postgame pressers. I saw the sincerity in Garfield Heights’ Trey Lewis and Cleveland Central Catholic’s Anton Grady as they spoke of getting revenge against a Green Bay team that embarrassed them at home last year. I sense the understanding in their voices as they discuss defensive concepts and the importance of gang rebounding. I hear them echoing their head coach and borrowing his pet phrases.

I watch this team and I listen to this team, and I almost find it silly how much I have come to admire them.

Their games of course come with mistakes, and each individual with faults, but that is part of what makes amateur sport. You’re not watching perfectly crafted jewels, but immature stones with blemishes yet to be buffed out. I had long subscribed to the theory that NBA basketball is superior to NCAA because every player is more talented, and thus the product is better, but CSU has reminded me how endearing imperfection can be. Fallible characters are always the most compelling.

I recognize that relatively few people are really following this team. I understand that some never will. But if you like basketball for any of the reasons that I like basketball, I ask you to give these Vikings a shot. They play hard, they play together, and they’re tied for first place in their conference. They have lost all of two games in 2015. They’re starting to believe that they can win the Horizon League and make the NCAA Tournament, and they might even be right.

With all that in mind, I present a beginner’s guide to the Cleveland State Vikings, in the form of each player’s NBA doppelgänger. Each NBA comparison comes with a year in a rough attempt to correspond to the Vikings’ current production, playing style, and potential.1

#3 Trey Lewis: 2008-09 Mo Williams

This comes with one important caveat: Mo was a secondary option on the first LeBron Era teams, while Lewis is in the crosshairs of every CSU opponent. The 6-2 combo guard and Penn State transfer leads the Vikes with a per-game average of 16.9 points. He manned the point while Charlie Lee was suspended for the first six games, but he has proven adept at playing away from the ball and curling off screens with Lee running the show. Lewis has some wiggle off the bounce, but he does the most damage from outside, where he is shooting nearly 44 percent. He can exhaust a scoreboard operator’s fingers when he gets hot, just like Mo Gotti did when he scored 52 this year.

#15 Anton Grady: 2000-01 Elton Brand

Grady has been a rock inside for Cleveland State, and especially lately: he’s notched four double-doubles in the Vikings’ last five games. He has Brand’s lack of height (both are 6-8) if not his girth, but he has enough moves in the bag to score among the tall trees. His quick hands are an asset on defense, and he is averaging better than a block and a steal per game. He got himself into foul trouble often early in the season, but he has committed three or fewer infractions in each of the last six games. On a team largely defined by its guard play, Grady provides a necessary bit of interior clout.

#31 Charlie Lee: 1995-96 Terrell Brandon

The 5-foot-8 Lee is a couple inches shorter than the diminutive Brandon, and faces a size disadvantage in nearly every game. He makes up for his lack of size with his smarts, his ballhandling, and his quickness. He is the most vocal Viking, often barking orders to get his teammates in line. He perhaps derives his leadership from his tenure, as he is the only senior backcourt player on the roster. He leads the team in assists, and scores just under a dozen points per game. He is also a deadeye from the charity stripe (86 percent this year) and a veteran whom Gary Waters can trust in crunch time.

#42 Marlin Mason: 2012-13 Jeff Green

This is far and away the cleanest comp on the board. Mason, like Green, is a versatile forward capable of rising above the rim or hitting from beyond the arc. He is best suited to play the 3 in conventional lineups, but he often plays power forward for the Vikes. Standing 6-foot-6, Mason has been an efficient scorer for Cleveland State, shooting 50 percent from the field and 39 percent from three-point land. He isn’t as aggressive as one might like (averaging 6.1 shots per game) and is prone to floating in and out of the game, but every now and then he makes a play that commands your attention.

#1 Andre Yates: 2007-08 Mike Conley

The Conley comparison flatters Yates a bit, but I wanted to find a defensive-minded lefty guard, and rookie year Conley fits that description. Yates, a Dayton Dunbar grad and Creighton transfer, has been a starter for much of the year in Cleveland State’s three-guard lineup. To watch him hunker down in his stance on D is to watch a lion preparing to pounce. He stands just 6-foot-2, but has no qualms about mixing it up with larger swingmen. His finest moment of the season came when he hit a go-ahead three-ball against Wright State in his hometown.

#41 Vinny Zollo: 1994-95 Danny Ferry

Putting his name next to Ferry’s might be harsh on Vinny, who catches some flack from fans as it is. Zollo is a 6-8 forward, ostensibly a stretch four type. His shooting has been spotty this year (34 percent from the floor, 32 percent from deep), and he doesn’t offer much in the way of rebounding or defensive toughness. He has had some nice games this season―a 14-point, 9-rebound outing at VCU being the best―but his production isn’t commensurate with his potential. If he can smooth out the wrinkles in his stroke, his shooting would provide vital spacing for the CSU offense.

#11 Terrell Hales: 2011-12 Iman Shumpert

Hales has won me over more than any other Viking. He’s a 6-foot-4 freshman from Detroit who attacks the ball like it holds the secret to revitalizing the Rust Belt economy. His physique is like that of a greyhound, long and lean, and he runs like one too. His jumper has all the grace of a newborn elephant, and his handle could use some tightening, but he has earned playing time through his tireless pursuit of the rock, not unlike Shump did in his early days with the New York Knicks. Waters has aptly referred to Hales as “a gain-possessioner.” If he can refine his offensive game, he could be a star in the making. For now, he is a ball of pure energy off the bench.

#20 Kaza Keane: 2009-10 Goran Dragic

The year is important for this comparison. Nowadays, Dragic is one of the craftiest point guards in the NBA, but five years ago he was a relatively unknown off-the-bench facilitator. Keane, an Illinois State transfer and Ajax, Ontario native, is cut from similar cloth, a reserve guard more likely to set up teammates than hoist on his own. His numbers inspire little awe, but he is able to play on or off the ball, help clean the glass, and fulfill his responsibilities within Cleveland State’s defensive scheme. His all-around game was on display when he totaled 16 points, 6 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals against Oakland in front of LeBron James. He may be the most willing passer on the team, and his steady brand of unselfishness would be welcome on any roster.

#33 Demonte Flannigan: 2007-08 Carl Landry

Flannigan, a 6-7 sophomore from Villa Angela-St. Joseph, doesn’t see a ton of minutes. When he does, his job is to mix it up inside, a bit like Landry during his time with the Houston Rockets. Flannigan has not yet earned a solid spot in the rotation, instead filling in when Grady gets too foul-happy or Zollo isn’t doing the job on the boards. Waters has suggested the Flannigan’s motor runs hot and cold; he benched him for much of CSU’s game against Detroit, sarcastically saying, “He didn’t feel like playing today. It was one of his days off. You get that sometimes.”

♦♦♦

Those, sports fans, are the featured players of this year’s team. They have eight games left this season (as of press time), including Wednesday, February 4 vs. Youngstown State.

If you’re only going to catch one Viking home game this year, make it the last of the season. They’ll face Valparaiso, with whom they currently share first place in the Horizon League. That game, on Friday, February 27, will not tip off until 10 p.m. It will be preceded by a “Viketoberfest” craft beer tasting event, which starts at 8:30.

For more information, check out the Cleveland State website. I hope to see you there.

1. Only the top 9 Vikings by minutes played made the cut.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to the Cleveland State Vikings appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

The Cleveland State Vikings continued their winning ways in the Horizon League Wednesday night, as they built a comfortable lead early and went wire-to-wire to beat the Youngstown State Penguins 73-60 at the Wolstein Center. Anton Grady paced the Vikings with 17 points, 13 rebounds, and 4 blocks. Charlie Lee and Trey Lewis combined for 26 points, including 5-of-11 three-pointers.

Two Vikings made history during the contest, with Grady and Lee both surpassing 1,000 career points. Lee entered the game with 996 points, and Grady with 988. Grady hit his mark with two free throws early in the second half, while Lee surpassed the milestone on a three-pointer with 6:56 left in the game. They are the 21st and 22nd Vikings to score over 1,000.

The win brings the Vikings’ record to 14-10 for the season, 8-2 in Horizon League play. Youngstown State falls to 10-16, and a woeful 1-10 in conference games. Shawn Amiker led the Penguins with 20 points and 11 rebounds.

Cleveland State jumped out to a 17-11 lead in the game’s first nine minutes, and went into the intermission with a 37-28 lead. Grady led the charge, sinking his first five shots en route to 10 first-half points. Lee and Yates each scored 6 in the half. CSU shot 42 percent in the first and assisted on 11 of their 14 buckets.

They wasted no time building on their advantage in the second half, scoring the first nine points after the break. The Viking lead peaked at 18 points when a Vinny Zollo three made it 46-28 with 17:42 to play in the second period. Youngstown State hung around, narrowing the lead to 10 with 3:38 to go, but CSU held them off to get the victory.

The win gives Cleveland State a season sweep of Youngstown State, having won 74-61 at their place on January 17. CSU’s next game is Saturday, February 7, against Wright State at the Wolstein Center.

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Head coach Gary Waters’ tenure at Cleveland State has been defined by his teams’ defense, and this year’s squad is no exception. The Vikings entered Saturday afternoon’s game against the Wright State Raiders allowing less than 62 points per game, a mark that puts CSU in the top 20 percent of the 347 NCAA Division I teams. They average over 8 steals per game, 23rd-best in the nation, and they allowed 57.6 points in their first 14 wins.

“This team is usually a pretty good defensive team,” Waters said. “With that, I don’t feel we’re ever out of a game. Now, the offense goes away sometimes. I don’t know where it goes. It flies around. But when we get both things going at once, we’re a pretty tough team.”

Call it a pleasant case of identity crisis, then, as the Viking offense was alive and well Saturday. Cleveland State (15-10, 9-2 in Horizon League) shot 61 percent en route to an 88-72 victory over Wright State (11-13, 3-7) at the Wolstein Center. The defense wasn’t at its best, as Wright State shot 54 percent from the floor and scored the most of any CSU opponent since VCU on December 29, but Cleveland State won behind its highest-scoring effort of the 2014-15 campaign.

The Vikings have won six of seven, and refuse to leave the top in the ongoing game of Horizon League king of the hill. The win puts Cleveland State a half-game ahead of Valparaiso and Green Bay in the conference standings. The Vikings are alone in first for at least one day; Valpo can grab a share of the lead if they defeat Oakland on Sunday. Green Bay’s next game is at Youngstown State on February 11.

Charlie Lee has anchored the CSU backcourt for months, but Saturday was his finest game of the season. Lee led all scorers with 27 points, a season high. He was a perfect 12-of-12 from the foul line and an efficient 7-of-11 from the field. The senior from Milwaukee also added three rebounds and three assists.

“Charlie had one of his phenomenal games,” said Waters. “He controlled the tempo, he hit the free throws, and he hit big, big shots.”

Lee made six free throws in the final four minutes, the last of which gave Cleveland State an 85-72 advantage. He scored 16 points in the second half, with 10 coming from the charity stripe. He was a tidy 3-of-4 from the field after halftime, scoring on a series of runners and floaters in the lane. Lee said that his size necessitates such trickery when trying to score over big men.

“I gotta use it,” said Lee of his floater. “I’m only 5-8. We work on it every day in practice. Can’t do nothing else.”

Lee’s performance, along with Trey Lewis’ 15 points and Andre Yates’ 10, buoyed the backcourt, but forward Anton Grady provided interior punch with another dominant game inside. The 6-8 forward scored 22 points on 10-of-13 shooting, including 16 points in the second half. He helped neutralize Michael Karena, Wright State’s 6-10 center, who finished with 13 points and battled foul trouble throughout.

“Anton was unbelievable inside,” Waters said. “They couldn’t handle him in there. He was going up against a 6-10 kid, and he could score on him at will.”

Lee echoed his head coach, and said that getting Grady the ball on the block was a focus throughout: “Gotta feed our horse. Gotta feed him, gotta give it to him inside. They was too little.”

Cleveland State jumped on the Raiders early, building a 25-13 lead in the game’s first 12 minutes. Vinny Zollo had two steals in the early going, which set up a fast break layup for Lewis and two free throws for Lee. The first half included a 13-0 CSU run that saw Lee, Yates, Grady, and Lewis all score.

Karena was whistled for his third foul with 7:09 left in the first half, which led Wright State coach Billy Donlon to trot out some unorthodox lineups. The Raiders went with five guards after their big man took a seat, and Waters responded in kind with a lineup of Lee, Lewis, Kaza Keane, Terrell Hales, and Derek Sloan, the latter of whom was the tallest Viking at 6-foot-6.

Wright State’s tricky personnel yielded positive results. The Raiders went on a 7-1 run to shrink the Viking lead to 26-20. The shooting of freshman guard Grant Benzinger, one of five Raiders to finish in double figures, was cited by Waters as a problem throughout the game. Waters said that defensive confusion allowed Benzinger and the Raiders to get free, and that the Vikings had to figure out their matchups when playing so small.

The Vikings withstood the blow and returned fire, and went into halftime with a 44-33 advantage.

“My hat’s off to Wright State,” said Waters, “because they tried some things out there, (like) running five guards. At one point we had to go away from what we (normally) do.

“I thought as the game went on we got a better understanding of what they had to do, and our adjustments, I thought, went well.”

The second half was an wide-open, back-and-forth, basket-trading affair, the likes of which is rarely seen at the Wolstein Center. The Raiders made seven of their first nine shots, including a Benzinger three-ball that made the score 56-50. Grady came back with five straight points to make it 61-50, only for Wright State to volley back with seven in a row to get within four, at 61-57.

The Vikings scored on their next six possessions to go up 72-64 with 7:55 remaining. The CSU defense buckled down from there, allowing just eight points in the final eight minutes. Cleveland State put the ball in Lee’s hands down the stretch, and they scored 12 of their last 14 points at the foul line to put it away.

It is no coincidence that the Vikings have ascended with Lee on the court. He was suspended for the season’s first six games for a violation of team rules. CSU went 3-3 in those games, which included a win over Division II Tiffin and a loss at then-sixth ranked Louisville. Waters praised his point guard after the game, and likened his leadership to that of a quarterback.

“In the early going of the year, we struggled in some games,” Waters said. “Even though we were playing them, we were in them, with chances to win and everything, we just didn’t have Charlie in there to get us over the hump. Then he came back, and it took him about three games to get in the flow with everyone. But after he got in the flow, I knew that he could lead his team to where he needed them to go.

“It’s just like football. If that quarterback doesn’t lead that group and do the things they have to do, it isn’t very good. When you got a good quarterback, and a good leader out on the floor, it really changes the outcome of every game.”

The Vikings have a long way to go before they are considered an offensive juggernaut. But if Charlie Lee and company can put up points like they did Saturday, Viking foes will have to worry about much more than just defense.

Cleveland State’s next game is at Detroit on Friday, February 13.

The post Cleveland State outshoots Wright State, back on top of Horizon League appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

Sunday was Senior Day at the Wolstein Center, and Cleveland State seniors Charlie Lee and Marlin Mason celebrated with a big alley-oop in the second half.

Lee lobbed it up from the top of the key, and Mason cut in from the corner to finish the job with a right-handed slam.

The Vikings defeated Illinois-Chicago 67-59 to improve to 10-3 in the Horizon League and 16-11 overall. Lee finished with 9 points and 8 assists, while Mason notched 11 points on 5-of-5 shooting, along with 3 blocks.

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Cleveland State split two games over the weekend, losing a half-game’s worth of ground in their pursuit of the top spot in the Horizon League. They lost a heartbreaker in the closing seconds at Detroit Friday night, but rebounded to defeat Illinois-Chicago Sunday behind a strong second half.

The Vikings’ record now stands at 16-11, 10-3 in the Horizon League. Valparaiso sits atop the conference at 11-2 (24-4 overall), with Green Bay just behind the Vikings at 9-3 (20-6).

The Vikings will be hard-pressed to catch Valpo. The Crusaders’ next two games are versus Wright State and at Detroit, who own a combined 23-31 record. Valparaiso and CSU will square off in the final game of the regular season on February 27. Green Bay’s remaining games are home against Detroit and CSU, at Illinois-Chicago, and home against Oakland.

A second-place conference finish would still be significant for the Vikings. The Horizon League teams with the top two regular season records get a double bye in the conference tournament, immediately putting them into the semifinals. The league has nine teams, which necessitates some unusual bracketing. The regular season champ hosts the second and third rounds, while the championship game is played at the higher seed’s gym.

The Vikings’ quest for the top spot took a hit Friday night at Detroit’s Calihan Hall, where CSU fell to the Detroit Titans 66-65. Cleveland State won narrowly at the Wolstein Center on January 23, and another close game was in the cards in the return matchup.

Juwan Howard, Jr. nailed a 30-foot three-pointer with 4.8 seconds left in the game to put the Titans ahead. Cleveland State nearly pulled out the victory, but Charlie Lee’s left-handed runner rimmed out as time expired.

Howard, the Horizon League’s leading scorer, struggled in the teams’ first contest, but played up to his pedigree on his home court. He scored 23 points on 9-of-14 shooting, including 7 of Detroit’s final 9 points. He hit a jumper with 19 seconds left to keep the Titans alive after two Charlie Lee free throws put CSU ahead 64-61.

The first half was a rock fight. The score was just 2-0 after four minutes of play, and Cleveland State didn’t get on the board until Trey Lewis scored on a layup with 14:44 left in the period. The Vikings committed four turnovers and five fouls before notching their first points.

The Vikings did well to make it close after struggling early on. CSU went into the half trailing by 8 points, and were behind by as much as 15 in the second half. Trey Lewis scored 23 to lead the comeback, but the early errors proved too much for Cleveland State to overcome.

♦♦♦

Sunday was senior day at the Wolstein Center, and the Vikings celebrated by defeating Illinois-Chicago 67-59. The scoring was balanced for CSU, with six players scoring at least 8 points, led by Trey Lewis’ 18.

It was a tale of two halves for the Vikings. The first was disjointed, especially on the offensive end. UIC committed to closing off the lane, doubling hard on Anton Grady and forcing CSU to operate from the perimeter. The Vikes got open looks and shot 7-of-12 from beyond the arc in the period, and that hot shooting masked their shortcomings.

The Flames pounded Cleveland State on the glass early and often, totaling 11 offensive rebounds in the first half. Illinois-Chicago shot just 32 percent in the first half, but the Viking defense was not at its best—it wasn’t forceful or dictatorial, but reactive and backpedaling.

That changed after the intermission. The Vikes forced 9 turnovers, blocked 10 shots, and held UIC to just 8-of-33 shooting in the second half. They scored 7 fast break points after netting zero in the first half, and they scored 20 points in the paint after just six in the opening period.

Anton Grady and Marlin Mason led the block party inside. Grady scored a modest 9 points, but he grabbed 13 rebounds and tied a career-high with 6 blocked shots, 5 of which came in the second half. Mason played just three first-half minutes after picking up two fouls, but he made the most of his time in the second. He finished with 11 points, 3 blocks, and the highlight of the game on an alley-oop connection with fellow senior Charlie Lee:

The loss to Detroit is disappointing, and a shot across the bow of the Vikings’ postseason hopes. Matchups with Valpo and Green Bay will be potentially make-or-break contests, and Milwaukee is no pushover. In something of a scheduling oddity, their next game is a non-conference visit to the Western Carolina Catamounts of the Southern Conference.

Cleveland State has a lot of work to do before they can put on their dancing shoes. But with a few more wins, they can at least start planning their outfit.

UPDATE: CSU’s game at Western Carolina has been cancelled due to the weather. From the school’s press release:

Due to poor travel and weather conditions in North Carolina, the Cleveland State men’s basketball game at Western Carolina scheduled for Tuesday (Feb. 17) has been cancelled.

CSU was scheduled to fly out on Monday afternoon, but the charter flight was cancelled. The Vikings were rescheduled to fly out on Tuesday morning, but poor travel conditions also cancelled that flight.

The Vikings return to action on Friday (Feb. 20) when CSU plays at Green Bay at 7:00 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on ESPN2.

The post Cleveland State Splits Weekend Games; In Second Place in Horizon League appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

The Cleveland State Vikings completed a season sweep of Green Bay Friday night, winning 66-61 in overtime and handing the Phoenix their first home loss of the season. They did it all on national television, with the game broadcast on ESPN2.

With the win, Cleveland State improves to 18-11, and 11-3 in Horizon League play. They are a half-game behind 11-2 (24-4 overall) Valparaiso, against whom they will close the season at home on February 27. The Crusaders play versus Wright State and at Detroit before they come to Cleveland; they are expected to win both games. The regular season champion gets home-court advantage throughout the Horizon League tournament.

Before playing Valpo, the Vikings play Sunday at Milwaukee. The Panthers are 11-16 on the season, 6-7 in conference, and 9-4 at home. Cleveland State blew out Milwaukee 84-57 at the Wolstein Center to open conference play on January 2.

We’ll have more on the weekend in Viking basketball next week, but here is the quick and dirty of what went down in crunch time at the Resch Center.

With 14 seconds left in regulation, Cleveland State called timeout with the game tied at 55. They had a chance for the last shot, but Green Bay’s zone defense appeared to confuse CSU, and Anton Grady’s jumper clanged off the iron.

Green Bay’s Jordan Fouse got the rebound and immediately called timeout. It looked like the Phoenix would have over a second to work with, but the referees only gave them 0.5, and they were inbounding from their own end. Fouse’s long lob pass intended for Greg Mays went out of bounds untouched, with Grady boxing Mays out.

Since no one touched it, the Vikings got the ball at the same spot, on the sideline in their frontcourt. They ran a play looking to hit Grady near the rim on the far side, but Grady couldn’t haul in Andre Yates’ inbounds pass cleanly, and the game went to overtime.

Neither side could unlock the opposing defense early in the extra period. Green Bay used some full-court traps and half-court zones to flummox CSU, while Cleveland State’s man-to-man scheme kept the Phoenix off the score sheet.

Charlie Lee opened the overtime scoring by drawing a foul in the lane and hitting a couple free throws with 3:02 to go. The next score didn’t come until there was 2:06 remaining, when Trey Lewis hit a step-back three from the left wing with the shot clock running down to make it 60-55.

With that lead in hand, the Vikings started to squeeze every second they could out of the game, and their defense forced Green Bay to use up clock as well. Keifer Sykes hit two free throws with just under a minute left to pull Green Bay within three points, at 60-57.

Cleveland State broke the ensuing trap and drained the clock further. With 10 seconds left on the shot clock and 34 on the game clock, Lee got into the lane off of a Grady screen. He hesitated near the free throw line, hit Trey Lewis on a beautiful backdoor cut, and Lewis converted the left-handed layup to make the score 62-57.

Green Bay got a quick two when Cleveland State conceded a Greg Mays dunk. The Phoenix forced the ball out of Charlie Lee’s hands on the following inbounds play, and then fouled Marlin Mason with 17 seconds to go.

Mason hit both free throws, Green Bay’s next shot went begging, the Vikings secured the rebound, Trey Lewis made two more free throws, and boom―a huge road win for Cleveland State.

Trey Lewis led CSU with 21 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. Anton Grady had a double-double, his seventh in conference play, with 20 points and 11 boards. Charlie Lee scored 12 and added 6 assists and 5 rebounds. They played 44, 43, and 45 minutes, respectively; remember that there are 45 minutes in an overtime college basketball game.

The post CSU hands Green Bay first home loss, controls own destiny in Horizon League appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

Cleveland State controlled their own destiny, and then they fumbled it away. The Vikings beat Green Bay in an overtime thriller Friday night, but fell to the Milwaukee Panthers 66-60 Sunday afternoon in the second leg of their two-game Wisconsin road trip. The loss ends CSU’s hopes for the regular season Horizon League title,1 though they can still get the No. 2 seed and a double bye in the conference tournament;2 they are currently a half-game ahead of both Green Bay and Oakland in the conference standings, and would win tiebreakers over both.

The loss is Cleveland State’s fourth of the calendar year, all of which have come on the road. CSU can still make the NCAA tournament if they win the Horizon League tourney.

The Vikings (17-12, 11-4) had a 55-51 lead with about six minutes remaining in the second half Sunday, but Milwaukee (12-16, 7-7) went on a decisive 11-0 run that put them ahead for good on their senior night. A Matt Tiby three-pointer with 1:37 to go made the Panther advantage 62-55. Charlie Lee hit a triple on the next Viking possession to narrow the margin to 62-58, but CSU was unable to draw any closer. Milwaukee made enough free throws to finish the job and get revenge for their blowout loss at the Wolstein Center back on January 2.

Trey Lewis set a Viking single-season record for three-pointers made in the game, sinking five from deep to give him 84 for the year. He broke the record set last year by Bryn Forbes, who transferred to Michigan State in the offseason.

Anton Grady was superb for Cleveland State, scoring 24 points to go with 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 2 steals. It was his eighth double-double in conference play, most in the Horizon League. Lewis notched a double-double of his own, scoring 19 points and pulling down 10 boards. Charlie Lee, playing in his hometown, scored 14 points.

The rest of the team totaled just three points, with exactly zero coming from the bench. Marlin Mason had a particularly nightmarish afternoon, shooting a frosty 1-of-10 (though he did have 9 rebounds and 2 blocks).

Cleveland State crashed the boards hard, grabbing 19 offensive rebounds that led to 18 second-chance points, yet they shot just 37 percent from the field overall. Lewis and Lee were a combined 9-of-19 on threes, but the lack of secondary scoring threats limited the Vikings.

Milwaukee, on the other hand, had four players in double figures, none of whom caused more problems than 6-10 forward J.J. Panoske. The big man scored 19 points and shot 5-of-8 from three-point land despite entering the game shooting 29 percent from deep. Akeem Springs scored 14 and grabbed 9 rebounds, while point guard Steve McWhorter and forward Matt Tiby scored 13 and 11, respectively. Cody Wichmann and Justin Jordan combined for 9 points off the Panther bench.

The Vikings were not at their best early on, but weathered the storm against an zealous Panther side. Four Viking guards—Lewis, Lee, Andre Yates, and Terrell Hales—had two turnovers each in the first half, and sloppiness with the ball was a problem throughout. Cleveland State finished with 12 giveaways, which Milwaukee turned into 18 points. The Vikings forced a relatively paltry nine turnovers, with six coming on steals.

CSU had an injury scare in the first half when Kaza Keane left the game with a right knee injury. He appeared to knock knees with a Milwaukee player and immediately stumbled toward the bench in pain. He was taken to the locker room and did not return to action. His injury opened up minutes and opportunities for Yates and Hales, but neither was especially effective, Hales’ three offensive rebounds notwithstanding.

Anton Grady made the most of his chances all day. He scored 12 points and grabbed 4 rebounds in the first half, and bettered both figures in the second. He hit a three from the top of the key on the last CSU possession before halftime to make it 33-29 in Milwaukee’s favor, saving a woebegone set that saw Trey Lewis trapped 30 feet from the hoop. Milwaukee sent a lot of attention his way, but Grady kept carving out space and scored on a series of bullish moves inside.

Akeem Springs provided a major boost for the Panthers. He only scored three points in 30 minutes in the teams’ first matchup on January 2, but he scored 9 and had 2 assists in the first half on Sunday. He shot a tidy 6-of-11 from the field for the game, including a pretty stepback jumper on Marlin Mason that extended Milwaukee’s lead to 29-23 in the first period.

Cleveland State scored six straight after the intermission, going ahead 35-33 on a Trey Lewis triple just 90 seconds into the second half. They held the lead for nearly 10 minutes until a Springs three put the Panthers back on top 45-43. Strong play from Grady over the next few minutes helped the Vikings retake the lead, and a Lee trey made the score 55-51 in CSU’s favor.

Alas, Grady would not score for the rest of the game, and Milwaukee did well to snatch the victory at home. They went with both man and zone defenses, contested Viking shots as best they could, and came up with big plays when they needed them.

It is a disheartening loss for Cleveland State, and they have the whole week to think about it. The defeat takes some juice out of their season-ending matchup with Valparaiso, though the game will not lack for consequence. A Viking victory would immediately put them through to the Horizon League tournament semi-finals, which would necessitate just two wins to make the Big Dance.

Hope is not lost yet, Viking fans. Keep the faith. We hope to see you at the Wolstein Center Friday night.

1. They could technically still win, but it’s terribly improbable: Valparaiso would have to lose at Detroit and CSU, and Green Bay would have to lose to Oakland
2. The Horizon League tournament bracket is a little weird.

The post CSU falls to Milwaukee, loses shot at regular season conference title appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

Despite a boneheaded headline suggesting the contrary―seriously, who writes this crap?―the Cleveland State Vikings will play Friday night for a share of the Horizon League regular season title and the top seed in the Horizon League tournament. It looked as though CSU’s loss to Milwaukee would take them out of the title picture, as all powerhouse Valparaiso (then 25-4) needed to clinch the conference was a win at middling Detroit (then 13-17). The Titans upset the Crusaders at home, with three Juwan Howard, Jr. free throws with one second remaining setting the final margin.

Just like that, the Vikings are back in the title hunt. They host Valparaiso, the league leader, Friday night. The game will be broadcast on ESPNU and will have an unusually late 10 p.m. tipoff.

The short version of the implications of Friday’s game vs. Valpo: If Cleveland State wins, they get a share of the conference title and (almost certainly) the top seed in the conference tournament, which includes hosting rights and a double bye into the semifinals. If Cleveland State loses, they get the No. 3 seed in the tournament, with no hosting and only a single bye. Their only chance into the NCAA Tournament is to win the conference tourney.

The longer version includes a bunch of tiebreakers. Here’s how ties are broken in the Horizon League (full tie-breaking procedures pictured on the right, per conference literature):

 • If two teams are tied, head-to-head record is used first. Let’s say State and Tech are tied; if State swept Tech during the season, then State wins.

 • If three or more teams are tied, then you compare the teams’ records against the others involved in the tie. For instance, if State, Tech, and A&M are in a three-way tie, but State swept both Tech and A&M during the season, then State wins out.

 • If head-to-head doesn’t resolve it, then the tied teams’ records against other conference teams come into play, starting at the top of the standings. For example, if State, Tech, and A&M are in a three-way tie, and were all 1-1 against each other during the season, then you look at the teams’ records against the best team not in the tie. If State swept the best remaining squad and Tech and A&M didn’t, then State wins out. If the teams have the same record against the best remaining team, then you go to their records versus the next-best, and on and on until the tie is busted.

 • If none of the aforementioned comparisons settle things, then tiebreakers are decided by RPI.

The first-round Horizon tournament games—No. 5 vs. No. 8 and No. 6 vs. No. 7—are played at the higher seed’s home court. The No. 1 overall seed hosts the next two rounds and gets a double bye into the semifinals. The No. 2 seed also gets a double bye into the semis, while Nos. 3 and 4 get single byes. The championship game is played at the highest remaining seed’s gym. The tournament champion gets an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. You can see the full bracket here; it’s kind of a weird one.

Valparaiso, Cleveland State, and Oakland will likely be the top three seeds in some order, with Green Bay potentially jumping into the picture. The CSU-Valpo game is the last of the season for both teams. Green Bay plays at conference stepping stone Illinois-Chicago Thursday, and hosts Oakland Saturday; that game is Oakland’s only one remaining. You can see the full conference standings here.

Here are the scenarios that concern Cleveland State:1

1. Cleveland State wins and Oakland loses

It is a two-way tie between Cleveland State and Valparaiso for the No. 1 seed.

• Head-to-head doesn’t work because the teams will have split their two games.
• The tie is then broken by records vs. the next-best conference teams.
  • CSU and Valpo both split with Oakland, the best remaining team, but CSU would get the No. 1 seed by virtue of their sweep of Green Bay (the next-best team), against whom Valpo split.

2. Cleveland State and Oakland both win

It is a three-way tie between CSU, Valpo, and Oakland for the No. 1 seed.

• CSU beats Valpo by virtue to their sweep of Green Bay, as in Scenario 1.
  • Oakland will have also swept Green Bay with a win Saturday, so Oakland also beats Valpo and it becomes a two-way tie between CSU and Oakland.
• Oakland and CSU split their matchups, and will have identical records against all other conference teams (split with Valpo, Milwaukee, and Detroit; swept everyone else), so the tie is then broken by RPI.
  • CSU is currently No. 121 in RPI; Oakland is No. 139.
  • Oakland could jump CSU, but CSU would likely stay ahead and get the No. 1 seed.

3. Cleveland State loses and Oakland wins

It is a two-way tie between CSU and Green Bay for the No. 3 seed.

• Valpo is No. 1 and Oakland is No. 2 with no ties.
• CSU gets the No. 3 seed by virtue of their season sweep of Green Bay, as in Scenario 1.

4. Cleveland State and Oakland both lose

It is a two-way tie between CSU and Oakland for the No. 3 seed.

• Valparaiso is the No. 1 seed and Green Bay is the No. 2 seed with no ties.
• Oakland gets the No. 3 seed by virtue of splitting against Valparaiso (against whom CSU will have lost both games), and CSU gets the No. 4 seed.

Got all that? I tell ya, tiebreakers are the most exciting things in sports.

Regardless of the consequences, Friday night’s game with Valpo should be among the very best in mid-major basketball this season. The Crusaders have been a juggernaut for most of the year, but they only won by two points when they hosted Cleveland State back on January 10. A lot can change in six weeks, and with both teams coming off a loss, it’s anyone’s guess as to who will prevail.

[This article has been updated and corrected; it previously stated that Cleveland State would get the No. 3 seed in Scenario 4. WFNY regrets the error.]

1. Assuming Green Bay beats Illinois-Chicago Thursday night.

The post Breaking Down CSU’s Shot at the Conference Title appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

For any team, those words hurt to say after a loss. They especially hurt for this Cleveland State team. For a team whose reputation is built around defense; for a team that led the conference in steals (officially) and floor burns (unofficially); for a team whose attitude embodies the nebulous but fierce Rust Belt identity; for a team forged of players from places like Cleveland, Detroit, Dayton, and Milwaukee; for a team more likely to win on industry than artistry, the words hurt.

“They played harder than us,” Trey Lewis said quietly after the Vikings lost to Valparaiso Friday night.

Those words hurt to say, although I’m not sure that they were true. The game was decided by execution more than effort, and the Vikings were outclassed more than outworked, but one’s post-loss universe revolves around perception, not reality. To go into an athlete’s mind postgame is to see an endless loop of every missed shot, every missed rotation, every missed opportunity.

CSU was not lacking for heart, or desire, or passion. The Vikings fought against the Crusaders, but simply lacked the offensive creativity and shot- and play-making necessary to trump their foes’ size.

The disparity in height, weight, and wingspan between the two sides was jarring. Valpo trotted out a starting lineup featuring three players taller than 6-foot-8, while just two Viking starters were taller than 6-3. Charlie Lee spent much of the game matched up against E. Victor Nickerson, who stood a full foot taller, while 6-2 Andre Yates drew the assignment of guarding 6-9 Alec Peters, the Horizon League’s fifth-leading scorer.

The CSU team came out strong, scoring at the bucket on two of their first three possessions. Those two scores, however, represented a quarter of the Vikes’ first-half field goals and over 23 percent of their first-half points. There were wide swathes of the half during which Cleveland State could not find the bottom of the net, including the final 5:40 of the period.

The Vikings got plenty of open looks beyond the arc, but were unable to convert. They made just 1-of-10 threes before the intermission, and missed their first four in less than four minutes of game time. They took it to the tin more as the contest went on, but by then they were chasing the victory like a boxer losing on the cards needing a knockout to win. The odds stacked taller and taller against the Vikings, and then fell on top of them like a Jenga tower.

Perhaps the adrenaline was too much. Trey Lewis and Charlie Lee wore wide smiles as they led their team out for pregame layups, their spirits buoyed by the largest and loudest home crowd of the season. Then both players briefly fumbled the basketballs they dribbled out of the tunnel, perhaps encapsulating the team’s struggle to handle its largest stage of the season.

The effects of playing on a big stage have not been fully sussed out. Each athlete adapts differently, and the differences in each sport require different adjustments. A competitor in a sport based on pure speed or power, like sprinting or powerlifting, may benefit more than one employing fine motor skills, like an archer. Basketball falls somewhere between those extremes.

It’s easy to play hard in front of a big crowd. Playing well is a different story, per a Los Angeles Times article by Hilary E. MacGregor, written during the 2004 Olympics:

“In order to play his or her best, an athlete needs to have the maximum amount of energy that you can control effectively,” said David Kauss, a sports and clinical psychologist at UCLA. “That varies from sport to sport, person to person. If you go into a stadium with 10,000 screaming fans, that is going to kick you up a notch, to the point where you might make a mistake.”

For example, he says, even the U.S. men’s basketball team, which includes professional athletes, was unprepared for the crowds in Athens. The players, used to playing in pro arenas, found themselves in Greece on a different court, with different referees and smaller, more passionate, more patriotic crowds. In their first game, against Puerto Rico, they faced half a dozen unexpected variables. By the time they adjusted, Kauss said, it was too late.

By the time they adjusted, it was too late. That sums up the Vikings’ effort against Valpo as effectively as any one sentence can. Cleveland State launched a desperate salvo late, scoring 18 of their 53 points in the final five minutes. The Crusaders weathered the storm, and a four-point play from Alec Peters with 1:11 to go was the deciding knell.

The loss to Valpo and Green Bay’s defeat of Oakland put the Vikings in the four-seed in the Horizon League tournament. They get a single bye rather than the double that would have come with a top-two seed, and they now need to win three games, away from home, to make the NCAA Tournament. They will face the winner of the Detroit-Youngstown State first-round game. If they win that (they swept Youngstown State and split with Detroit this season), they will get a rematch with Valpo at their Indiana home court.

And now, the Cleveland State Vikings have a decision to make. Now, they decide if their season will be defined by a disappointing loss or a spirited postseason run. The loss hurts, yes, and it should hurt. The ecstasy of victory is nothing without the despair of defeat.

But similarly, the despair of defeat is nothing without the hope and promise of the next game. To that end, Trey Lewis had some other words before leaving the postgame presser.

“We’re definitely going to use this as motivation.”

In truth, that’s the only option. Anyone who has taken a few practice shots knows that you can’t end on a miss. Losing to Valpo was a miss. Being knocked down to the four-seed was a miss. Being unable to execute on the biggest stage of the season was a miss.

All the Vikings can do now is put up another shot.

The post Blinded by the Lights: Cleveland State Struggles on Big Stage appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

Their regular season ended with disappointment, and their path to the NCAA Tournament is much tougher than it would have been had they beaten Valparaiso last Friday, but the Cleveland State Vikings ain’t dead yet. They are the number four seed in the eight-team Horizon League tournament, and Friday night they play the Detroit Titans in Valparaiso, Indiana for the chance to face the top-seeded Crusaders on Saturday.

Valpo has the gaudiest record at 26-5, Green Bay has the conference player of the year in Keifer Sykes, and Oakland has perhaps the league’s best inside-out combo in Kahlil Felder and Corey Petros. But the Vikings have as good a shot as anyone to come out of the Horizon League.

Consider that CSU is the only team to have two all-league first-team selections in Anton Grady and Trey Lewis. Consider that Grady was among the league’s very best all-around players, and the only one to rank in the top six in points, rebounds, steals, blocks, and field goal percentage in conference games. Consider that Lewis scored 20-plus points 11 times, and that he twice went off for 30-plus. Consider that Lewis and Charlie Lee both shot better than 43 percent from three-point land. Consider that the Vikings average a shade under eight steals per game, 35th-best out of all 347 Division I teams.

I understand if you’re not convinced. I understand that I’m just an optimistic yahoo hoping that the boys in green can produce some late-season magic. Perhaps you’d put more stock in something published by ESPN?1 The folks there have devised a formula aimed at finding the most likely giant killers in each league, and our hometown Vikings were their selection from the Horizon. To wit:

Best Killer: Cleveland State Vikings

Key stat: Steals on 11.7 percent of opponent possessions (ranking 33rd)

Our take: When we first computerized our model, Cleveland State was the very first Giant Killer it spotted, way back in 2009. And sometimes historical connections are more than sentimental: As we have written, “In the time-honored tradition of Cedric Jackson, Norris Cole and D’Aundray Brown, the Vikings pressure the ball on D.” They always force scads of turnovers while shooting well from downtown and keeping the tempo slow — and that collection of traits always serves Killers well. After an up-and-down season, Cleveland State now has to win the Horizon tournament; it went 3-3 this season against its three most likely opponents, with its three losses coming by a total of five points.

The folks at SB Nation aren’t sleeping on the Vikes either:

[Valpo and Green Bay are the favorites, but] a couple of the lower seeds could end up crashing the party. Cleveland State is the obvious choice, having swept Green Bay in the regular season.

I don’t have any computerized model, but there’s hope here, folks. There are caveats, to be sure—the Vikes are inconsistent, they’re small, they struggle to score if Lewis has an off night or Grady is in foul trouble—but the 2015 Horizon League is not the 1988 Big East. There is no team sniffing the caliber of Kentucky, Duke, or Virginia. Everyone can lose. Everyone can win.

“If we’re gonna win this thing, we gotta win it the hard way.” Those were Gary Waters’ words after the Vikings’ loss to Valpo. They have to win three straight, which would certainly include a rubber match with the Crusaders and likely a third date with 23-7 Green Bay. It won’t be easy. But it can be done.

On that note, let us see how Cleveland State could punch a ticket to the Big Dance.

The first step is beating Detroit. The Vikings split with the Titans in the regular season, winning by four at home and losing by a point on the road. Detroit is not an especially good team, having tallied a sub-.500 record, but they boast the conference’s second-leading scorer in Juwan Howard, Jr. and the league’s freshman of the year in 6-7 guard Paris Bass. They beat Valpo once and stomped Oakland by 20. They have perhaps the greatest gap between their potential floor and ceiling of any Horizon League squad.

It’s not a gimme by any means, but the Vikings should be able to dispatch the Titans. They beat them without Swiss Army knife Kaza Keane and rim rattler Marlin Mason, and lost only when Charlie Lee’s game-winning runner rimmed out after Juwan Howard buried a three from Ontario. Anton Grady was limited by foul trouble to 19 minutes in the loss. A lot of things had to go well for Detroit to beat CSU at home. Look for a Viking victory on a neutral Valparaiso court.

Next would be a showdown with Valpo. This would be the toughest game of the lot, and the odds are surely not in Cleveland State’s favor, especially playing the game in Indiana. Valpo is big; they start three guys over 6-8, including the conference Defensive Player of the Year, 6-10 center Vashil Fernandez (2.9 blocks per game). They can shoot; three regulars hit triples at a rate better than 37 percent, including star sophomore Alec Peters (47 percent). They take care of the boards; they ranked 29th in the nation in rebounds per game.

Perhaps most importantly, they’re well-coached. Bryce Drew is 92-41 in his four years as Valpo skipper, and his charges play a smart brand of ball. They box out. They sprint back in transition. They play hard. Drew has their ear, and he makes the most of it. During the Crusaders’ win in Cleveland last weekend, he constructed little objectives throughout the game to challenge his team: Win this possession. One-and-done here. Get three straight stops. He’s a formidable salesman, and his team has bought in.

But they’re not unbeatable. Cleveland State’s two losses came by five total points. They can play with this team, and they won’t be lacking for inspiration. That last home loss killed the Vikings. It killed them. Trey Lewis, and especially Anton Grady, could barely squeeze air past their lips in the post-game presser. They would have looked less distraught if you told them Christmas was cancelled and it’s all their fault. They were positively wrecked. But misery doesn’t have a long shelf life in basketball. It transforms into rage.

The Vikings will be good and mad if they meet Valpo again. Beating the Crusaders would be payback. Beating them would mean ending their season, and doing it on their home court. Beating them would prove that they can beat anyone in the league. Beating them would mean playing more ball. Beating them would mean that seniors Charlie Lee and Marlin Mason would get to play at least one more game.

More than anything, it comes down to how much Sidney Deane the Vikings have in them.

Deane is Wesley Snipes’ character in White Men Can’t Jump. While scouting the competition in a big-money 2-on-2 tournament, Deane’s playing partner, Woody Harrelson’s Billy Hoyle, makes a big show of talking trash to their opponents. The reason is twofold. First, per Hoyle, “Most guys don’t play good (sic) when they’re mad.” Second, Hoyle believes that Deane in fact does better when he’s mad. Billy Ho turns out to be prescient as—spoiler alert for a 23-year-old movie—he and Sidney go on to win the tourney’s $5,000 grand prize.

(Language NSFW. Subtitles Swedish)

The Vikes need to employ emotion responsibly to beat Valpo at their place. They were cranked up to 11 in the season finale at home, but 11 is not tenable; you’ll blow the amp. Instead, to borrow from Denzel Washington’s Herman Boone, they need to control that anger and harness that aggression into a team effort to achieve perfection. That’s what it will take to get to the conference finals.

By then, it will be either Oakland or Green Bay, and it will be at their gym since both teams are seeded higher than CSU. Cleveland State swept Green Bay and split with Oakland. Both are good teams, but two straight wins would have the Vikings flying high.

They corralled Keifer Sykes in their two wins against the Phoenix, including a 14-point cruise at home. Sykes is more of a driver than a marksman, and at 6-foot and 180 pounds, he lacks the size to cause any significant mismatch. Green Bay has shown no game plan for containing Lewis or Grady, as the pair combined to average 45 points and 18 rebounds in two outings against them. Sometimes basketball just comes down to matchups, and Cleveland State may be the mongoose to Green Bay’s snake.

CSU’s games against Oakland were hard-fought, with the Vikings winning by four at home and losing by three on the road. The Golden Grizzlies enter the tournament having won four of five and 11 of their last 14. They suffered five straight losses during a brutal road trip that included stops at Michigan State, Arizona, Pitt, Clemson, and Maryland, but acquitted themselves well in conference play. 5-foot-9 sophomore Kahlil Felder averaged 17.4 points and 7.7 assists, and 6-10 center Corey Petros is a daily double-double threat. If these teams square off in the finals, it’s anybody’s game.

◆◆◆

It won’t be easy for Cleveland State. They could easily lose each of these games, but such is the nature of postseason college hoops. They have plenty on their side, and they’ll have a credible claim to the two best players on the court in every game with Lewis and Grady. Lee is an experienced floor general, and his voice is the loudest on the team.

I saw Trey Lewis in the city after that loss to Valpo. He was quiet, reflective, not quite brooding. He took the loss hard, especially as a Cleveland native. He spoke in the post-game press conference of letting his team down and using the game as motivation.

Feel like I let the city down tonight. Had a chance to make history and blew it. Tough loss but our season isn't over

— Trey Lewis (@Treylew3) February 28, 2015

The most telling sign is that he didn’t hide. He was out in his CSU jacket and CSU winter hat. Even in defeat, he was a proud Viking. This team doesn’t just wear Cleveland across their chest during games. They are full-time committed to representing their school and this city.

I’ve written off the Vikings before. I’m not about to do it again.

1. It’s Insider content. Sorry, gang. Hat tip to WFNY’s Joe Gilbert for passing it along.

The post Charting the Vikings’ Course to the Big Dance appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

It wasn’t a surprising result. They were playing on the road. They were playing on the second night of a back-to-back. They were playing the conference champions. They were playing against a bigger team, a stronger team, perhaps a more skilled team. So it is not much of a shocker that the Cleveland State Vikings’ season ended with a 60-55 Horizon League tournament semi-final loss to the Valparaiso Crusaders.

There is more to the story, however. The game’s tenor differed from that when the teams met in Cleveland a week earlier. The Vikings were ready for this one. Whereas Cleveland State looked a touch overwhelmed at home―they chased the game like a child clambering up a slick playground slide; even as they threatened to reach their goal, there was never a sense of real possibility―they were up for the task on the road.

They were both more aggressive and better prepared in Indiana. They fell into a 9-2 hole in the game’s first three minutes, but they recovered to take the lead in the next two. Anton Grady scored six points and assisted on a Marlin Mason layup, and that 8-0 run helped the Vikings equalize the momentum.

They adjusted their offense to better counter the Crusaders constantly doubling Grady. The junior from Cleveland Central Catholic operated more from the elbows than the low post on Saturday, which offered more avenues for passing out of double coverage, especially to cutters in the paint.

Grady was outstanding, both scoring and distributing. He finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists. He shot 7-of-14 from the field and 6-of-7 from the line en route to his ninth double-double of the season. He played 38 of 40 possible minutes, and you knew where he was during every one of them, including the game’s deciding moments.

Grady scored and was fouled inside with eight seconds remaining. The bucket cut Valpo’s lead to 58-55. His free throw bounced off of the back rim, and Trey Lewis swooped in for the offensive rebound. Rather than kick the ball outside, Lewis went up in traffic hoping to draw a foul. The zebras held onto their whistles, the ball skittered loose toward the near corner, and possession went to Valpo when Andre Yates’ diving attempt came up short. Valpo added two more free throws, and the game was over.

Alec Peters was superb for Valparaiso. The 6-9 junior scored 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting, and was a perfect 7-of-7 from the foul line. He scored a crucial basket late, slithering through the Viking defense to convert a layup to extend Valpo’s lead to 56-53 with 42 seconds to go.

That Peters layup came shortly after a Trey Lewis stepback three tied it at 53 with 2:09 to go. Lewis struggled for much of the game before coming alive for eight points in a four-plus minute stretch in the second half. He shot just 4-of-14 for the game, but that hot spell helped pull CSU level after trailing by nine with 7:17 to go.

In the aggregate, there was little difference in how the teams played. Cleveland State shot 39 percent from the field, and Valpo 38 percent. CSU was 4-15 on threes, Valpo was 5-17. Both teams had seven turnovers. Both had 10 assists. The Vikings had more steals, and the Crusaders more blocks. The teams played similarly. Valpo just played a little better.

There were a few categories in which Valparaiso held greater advantages: Valpo bettered Cleveland State in rebounding (36-31, 13-10 offensive), points in the paint (24-19), and second chance points (13-7). They also shot and made more free throws (17-of-23 compared to CSU’s 11-of-15).

The second half free throw discrepancy was especially significant: Valparaiso shot 21 free throws, and Cleveland State shot 2. The Crusaders were in the bonus with 9:17 to go, and they drew 14 fouls in the second half overall. Some of those fouls against CSU were late clock-stopping hacks, and some were silly reach-ins on the perimeter, but the disparity in the numbers is still striking. Perhaps Valpo was that much more aggressive than the Vikings, and perhaps they benefited from some homespun officiating. Either way, they capitalized on their opportunities from the stripe.

Mix the bits about rebounding, interior scoring, and free throws together, and the story of the game goes like this: the guys in the yellow shirts were bigger, so they staked a claim to whatever real estate they chose. They happened to choose the most valuable real estate, so the smaller guys in the green shirts tried to stop them. In doing so they broke the rules, and by said rules the yellow team received more opportunities to score points. And they did score more points, so they won the game, so now they get to play more basketball. The end.

♦♦♦

As for the Vikings, their season ends earlier than they would have liked. The goal of any college team―and especially a mid-major, which CSU is despite their head coach’s distaste for the term―is to make the NCAA Tournament. A trip to the big dance was not in the cards this season, and in truth, a loss in the conference tournament semi-finals feels about right for how Cleveland State played all season. They were often good but rarely great, always competitive but seldom dominant. Defense kept them in most every game, but scoring too often felt like pulling teeth.

They may play postseason ball yet, but that would come in a relatively off-brand tourney like the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, in which they played last season. They lost to Ohio in the first round 64-62.

Any further games aside, the season’s end marks the end of three CSU seniors’ college careers: point guard Charlie Lee, forward Marlin Mason, and reserve Dave Goodwater. Lee and Mason were important contributors to the Viking cause all season, and they will not be easily replaced.

Lee was the team’s floor general and carried the loudest voice, and his departure will leave a leadership vacuum for the 2015-16 season, presumably to be filled by rising seniors Lewis and Grady. Lee scored 10 points in 38 minutes in his final game, adding two rebounds, two assists, and a steal. He finishes his Viking career having played 120 games, totaling 1,115 points (9.3 per game), 448 assists (3.7) and 129 steals (1.1). The Milwaukee native is one of four players in school history to finish with better than 1,000 points and 400 assists, and he is the program’s all-time leading free throw shooter at 88 percent.

Mason, a 6-6 forward from Detroit Cass Tech, was perhaps the most versatile Viking in 2014-15. He proved able to play inside and out, and produced some of the year’s finest highlights. He totaled six points and three blocks in his finale. He missed three games this season with flu-like symptoms, and underwent two spinal taps when the illness was feared to be meningitis. Mason leaves the program having totaled 737 points, 491 rebounds, and 100 blocks in 111 career games. He shot better than 47 percent from the field and 73 from the free throw line in his four years as a Viking.

Goodwater did not play in the season’s final game, and saw time in two contests on the season. The Solon native transferred from Division II Malone University in Canton.

Next year’s team will bring back most of this season’s key players, most notably Lewis and Grady. Lee and Mason’s departures will open up two starting spots, and it will be interesting to see who claims them. Rising junior Andre Yates and senior-to-be Kaza Keane look to be the best bets to take over Lee’s backcourt position. Yates proved himself as a capable defender in his first season as a Viking1, and the lefty scored nine points off the bench in the semi-final against Valpo. Keane was a jack-of-all-trades for Cleveland State and is a natural distributor. Both would be well-served to improve their shooting, a constant CSU bugaboo.

The frontcourt spot next to Grady could be a trickier fill. Neither Vinny Zollo, Demonte Flannigan, or Aaron Scales fully earned Gary Waters’ trust this season. Zollo’s shooting is a potential asset, but his defending leaves a lot to be desired. Flannigan and Scales are both wide bodies, but showed little in terms of value-added skill. Next year’s team is again likely to be perimeter-dominant, but there are minutes to be had for big men.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, the story of the 2014-15 Cleveland State Vikings season is all but complete. It does not finish with a terribly happy ending, but this team has a lot to be proud of. They were small and had precious few threatening shooters, and they lost last season’s leading scorer when Bryn Forbes transferred to Michigan State.

But even to the bitter, unfulfilling end, this team battled. They were among the toughest outs in the league. They hung tough at Louisville and Virginia. They played hard and conducted themselves like pros. They took pride in representing their university and their city. They made no excuses. They should find solace in all of these things.

Yet, they won’t be satisfied with this campaign, and nor should they be. No one plays for moral victories. Now, it’s a matter of how they retool for next season. I, for one, look forward to seeing the results. Go Vikes.

1. He transferred from Creighton.

The post Cleveland State’s Quest for Big Dance Ends in Valparaiso appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.

In 2012, Gary Waters saw a bright future for the Cleveland State Vikings. Perennial Horizon League power Butler, which had won at least a share of five of the previous six HL championships, left the conference to join the Atlantic 10 conference before finding their way to the revamped Big East. The Vikings were young but promising, with Anton Grady, Charlie Lee, and Marlin Mason all expected to become major contributors. With Butler out of the way, Waters saw a power vacuum, an opportunity for his team.

“Better get us now,” he said in an interview. “After this year, it’s over.

“The next four years will be a great time with these kids at Cleveland State.”

Flash forward to today, less than three years later, and the landscape surrounding the Wolstein Center looks much less sunny. Standout guard Trey Lewis announced his transfer to Louisville in early April. A couple weeks later, assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Jermaine Kimbrough left CSU after eight years to join Eric Musselman’s staff at the University of Nevada.1

The latest domino to fall is the announcement that star forward Anton Grady will follow in Lewis’ (and before him, Bryn Forbes’) footsteps in transferring away from Cleveland State. Like Lewis, Grady is an immediately eligible fifth-year transfer; he missed a year due to injury and will graduate this spring. Grady and Lewis are both local products, having come from Cleveland Central Catholic and Garfield Heights, respectively, and it’s disheartening to see both leave Northeast Ohio — although Grady’s destination is not yet known.

Grady has posted some things online that may be alluding to his next move, but his Twitter account is private and thus I will not share them here. Suffice it to say that he has tweeted things about the importance of family and wondering aloud where his next basketball might be played. Per ESPN’s Jeff Goodman, Grady will have no shortage of suitors. The only sure thing for next season is that he won’t be wearing the Vikings’ green and white.

Cleveland State transfer Anton Grady told ESPN he has heard from: Kansas, K-State, Iowa St, Xavier, Pitt, Wichita St, Dayton, NC State, Neb.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) April 23, 2015

With Lewis and Grady, both All-Horizon League selections this past season, transferring, the Vikings are suddenly in full rebuild mode. Between those departures and Marlin Mason and Charlie Lee graduating, the Vikes go into next season without their four leading scorers from this year’s campaign. Suddenly, the roles of seniors-to-be Vinny Zollo and Kaza Keane and rising juniors Andre Yates, Aaron Scales, and Demonte Flannigan have grown much larger. Either Terrell Hales or Kenny Carpenter, both of whom saw time as freshmen, could crack the starting rotation.

The question is, then: What’s going on at Cleveland State?

It could be a series of unfortunate coincidences. Lewis’ transfer is a bummer, but it makes sense — the chance to play at a top-25 school and potentially catch the eye of NBA scouts is tough to pass up. Grady, who averaged over 14 points and nearly 8 rebounds per game last season, may wind up at a similarly big program. Kimbrough served under Gary Waters for a good long while and may have seen little opportunity for upward mobility — coaching alongside Musselman, who has been a head coach in the NBA,2 could open up new opportunities for him.

This is all, it should be said, mere conjecture.

In any event, Waters finds himself in a tough spot. Next season will be his 10th at Cleveland State. His teams are 176-127 in his nine years at the helm. He made great strides in his first three seasons, going from 10-21 (ninth place in the Horizon League) to 21-12 (and an NIT appearance) to 26-11 (including an NCAA Tournament win over Wake Forest). CSU’s last conference title came in 2010-11, and the team is 76-56 (40-26 in conference) since. The Vikings remain a respected mid-major program, but there is a sense that things have plateaued.

The Vikings still play in the 13,000-seat Wolstein Center, but averaged less than 2,000 fans per game last season. That number would look better if they played in a cozier gym, but the cavernous Wolstein Center is simply too large for the program, at least as it stands now. Waters’ salary is $340,000 per year — reasonable compared to multimillion dollar deals of Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski or Louisville’s Rick Pitino, but nothing to sneeze at for an athletic department that just weeks ago was on the verge of cutting its wrestling program altogether.

This is not a call for Waters’ head. While some have surely been disappointed with the Vikings’ past few years, especially in light of the recent transfers, the program is in much better shape than it was a decade ago — they won 31 games total in four seasons from 2002-03 to 2005-06, and had just two winning seasons from 1993-94 to 2006-07.

Waters is (or at least seems to be) respected by his players, and he has established something of a recruiting pipeline from Detroit to Cleveland.3 He runs a mentorship program through which Vikings are connected to professionals in their desired field, sports-related or otherwise. Perhaps his on-court tactics could use some freshening up, but he runs a pretty solid program.

Fans may cry that the team needs more talent, but how would one propose accomplishing that, especially in today’s one-and-done NCAA? How would you recruit someone to play at Cleveland State? What’s the hook? And if you did get a star player or two, how would you convince them to stay?

These are the questions that Waters and CSU need to find answers for, preferably in short order. The 2015-16 outfit will bear little resemblance to the 2014-15 squad. Four departing players — Lewis, Grady, Lee, and Mason — each averaged over 26 minutes per game last season, and accounted for over 50 points. The Vikings averaged 68 as a team.

Waters has done well to make Cleveland State respectable. The seas around the Vikings, however, are growing choppier. Star players jumping ship is a bad look. It won’t be easy to get the program back on the right course. Such is life as the captain.

1. Former Viking and current New Orleans Pelican Norris Cole on Kimbrough: “Coach Kimbrough has played a huge part in my player development; always had the ability to recruit talent and relate to recruit. He also understands that there’s more to life than basketball. He will be a great addition for [Nevada’s] staff.”
2. Musselman coached the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings, and was an assistant with the Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks, and Memphis Grizzlies.
3. Kenny Carpenter and Terrell Hales are both from Detroit, as is the graduating Marlin Mason.

The post Leave-land State: What’s going on at CSU? appeared first on Waiting For Next Year.