Back in November, most observers wondered how Cleveland State would fare this season without its reigning Horizon League Player of the Year. The answer, apparently, was simply to produce another one.
Junior guard Colbi Maples has been voted as the 2023-24 HL Player of the Year, the conference announced on Monday. Maples is the second straight Viking to capture the HL’s signature individual award, of course, following Destiny Leo’s recognition last season. Audra Cook (1999-2000) and Kailey Klein (2008-09) have also won top player honors in the Horizon League, while Lanette Taylor was similarly decorated in the old North Star Conference back in 1991-92.
Redundantly, but significantly, Maples was also selected to the all-league first team. She won a spot on the conference’s all-defensive quintet as well.
After transferring to CSU over the summer from Grambling State, the Earle, AR native became the Vikings’ starting point guard from day one and was a true floor general on both sides of the court. She worked in tandem with Leo early in the season then, following Leo’s season-ending knee injury on November 25th, found instant chemistry with fellow transfer Mickayla Perdue to ensure that Cleveland State kept chugging forward through catastrophe.
Along the way to a 18-2 Horizon League record and an outright regular season title, Maples averaged 16.6 points, 4.4 assists and 2.0 steals per game to cement her place as the premier player in the point guard-rich HL. She was named the circuit’s Player of the Week twice this year, first on December 4th after going for 25 and 23 points in wins over Robert Morris and Northern Kentucky to help CSU start conference play 2-0. She followed that up with another award on January 22nd, in recognition of a combined 37 points and nine assists in defeats of Wright State and IUPUI.
Vikings clean up on HL specialty awards
Cleveland State, as expected given the Vikings’ first-place finish, dominated the postseason conference citations, a feat that included the capture of four of the HL’s seven specialty awards (including Maples’ Player of the Year laurel), as well as a pair of spots on both the all-league first team and the conference’s all-defensive squad.
Perdue was selected as the Horizon League’s Newcomer of the Year, while also joining Maples on the HL’s first team.
If Maples was the conference’s best player, Perdue might have been its most valuable. The former Toledo and Glenville State guard stepped into the Vikings starting lineup after Leo’s injury and did nothing less than score 19.0 points per game during Horizon League play, a narrow second to Wright State’s Alexis Hutchison among the league leaders. Much of that damage was done from three-point range, as Perdue led the conference in both attempts (132) and makes (49) from distance. Her seven three-pointers in eight attempts and 30 total points were driving forces behind Cleveland State’s biggest win of the year, at home against Green Bay on February 3rd.
Like Maples, Perdue was selected as the Horizon League’s Player of the Week twice, on February 5th following the Green Bay game, and on January 15th, after dropping 44 points in home wins over Detroit Mercy and Purdue Fort Wayne.
Fifth-year player Carmen Villalobos was tabbed as Defensive Player of the Year following an HL campaign that saw the Cardiz, Spain product finish seventh in the conference with 5.3 defensive rebounds per game in league play, as well as second with 2.3 steals per outing. She had a season-high five steals against Youngstown State on January 6th, then matched that total on February 7th versus Wright State.
Advanced metrics were just as kind to the former Hartford player, as Villalobos led the Horizon League in defensive rating (78.4), defensive win shares (1.3) and defensive win shares per 40 minutes (0.08). Her win share count was 30 percent higher than any other player in the conference.
Rounding out CSU’s victory lap was Chris Kielsmeier, who was selected as Coach of the Year after leading the Vikings to the first conference regular season championship in program history – and doing it without his established star player.
Kielsmeier is 125-58 overall across his six seasons at Cleveland State, including 57-9 with a pair of league titles over the last two. In all, the Iowa State graduate has 539 victories in a quarter century as a head coach, including previous stops at Division III Howard Payne and Division II Wayne State (NE). He won a combined five conference coach of the year honors at HPU and WSC, along with WBCA National Coach of the Year recognition in 2007-08, when he led Howard Payne to a 33-0 record and a national championship.
