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.
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