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Many of you were extremely turned off the NBA team in Cleveland after Thursday night’s debacle in Miami. Things seem to hit rock bottom in Saturday’s night blowout loss to lowly Minnesota. While all this was going on, a juggernaut is going unnoticed just up Carnegie Ave.
Ladies and gentleman, there is only one 10-0 team in all of Division I college basketball right now. That would be the Cleveland State Vikings.
Head Coach Gary Waters is doing it again. Last year pre-league play, Waters admittedly over-scheduled his team who lost four Seniors that helped win the Horizon League Tournament and knocked off Wake Forest in the NCAA first round. He loaded up with the likes of West Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas State (three elite eight teams), Ohio State, and Virginia. It backfired as the young team started very slowly.
This season, Waters loaded up with quality mid-majors – Akron (MAC) , Kent State (MAC) , St. Bonaventure (A-10), Iona (MAAC), and Louisiana-Lafayette (Sun Belt). Big boys West Virginia and South Florida are coming in the next couple of weeks, but the Horizon League season started last week with the dreaded Wisconsin two-step. The Vikings, picked to finish third by the coaches in the preseason, took both road games with relative ease to move to a perfect 10-0, 2-0 in the league.
While the Heat were abusing the Cavs, the Vikings were picking apart Green Bay the Resch Center. Norris Cole, a three-year starter and all-Horizon League performer, led all scorers with 26 points. While he struggled from the floor (5-12), his aggressive dribble drives got him to the line 16 times, where he knocked down 15. Meanwhile, the Vikings, not known for their three-point shooting, were a sizzling 10-14 from deep. Tre Harmon hit four of his five attempts. It wasn’t pretty, but the three pointers bailed them out. It was the first time in four years the Vikings have won in Green Bay.
“That was an ugly game, a real ugly game that lasted too long with too many fouls called,” Waters said. “It was really what I call an interrupted game. No flow in the game. I see 52 percent [shooting], and I can’t complain. The streak continues.”
So on to Milwaukee they went and this time, they put it all together. Four Vikings were in double figures in the 82-59 blowout road win. Jeremy Montgomery, another veteran, hit five threes on his way to 20 points. Charlie Woods’s 10 off the bench were a key as Waters crew moved to 10-0. Like they did two nights earlier in Green Bay, the Vikes were on fire from deep, hitting a whopping 14 triples in 22 attempts (63%). Defensively, they swarmed UW-Milwaukee all night and held them to 29% from the field. Waters was beaming afterwards.
“Last year, we were playing with a lot of young kids, and they didn’t understand the defensive philosophy,” he said. “We know that you win ballgames by playing defense. We said that we’re going to come into these places and make them a defensive game.”
Waters is right. This team is now a veteran group that has jelled. Guys like Aaron Pogue, Cole, Harmon, and Montgomery all were starters last year. Woods is a red-shirt sophomore. Tim Kamczyc, the fifth starter, was a key role player as well. Sixth man Josh McCoy is in his third year with the program, and Joe Latsas is a red-shirt junior. Don’t forget three-year starter D’Aundray Brown hasn’t played in a game yet. The 6’5 Senior has been out with a torn ligament in his finger.
With the Cavaliers is the tank, why not give some love to the college team in town? The Butler run to the title game shows that anything is possible. Nobody has played Butler tougher in the past three years than Cleveland State. Expect the two, along with Detroit, to battle all year for the Horizon League title. And do yourself a favor, get down to the Wolstein Center and support this team. They deserve it.
