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.
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