The final buzzer of a championship game is an exercise in chaos, from the immediate moment when the victorious team rushes the court to exchange leaping hugs. Suddenly, as if from the ether, commemorative hats and t-shirts appear and are hastily thrown on, while somewhere undetectably behind the euphoria, a stage is assembled. Eventually, things settle into a formal trophy presentation, a confetti shower and a net cutting, before reverting to more hugs and as many photos and videos as a smartphone can hold.
After Green Bay thrashed Cleveland State 64-40 in the Horizon League championship game on Tuesday afternoon, things were much less raucous on the opposite side of the Indiana Farmers Coliseum stands. Phoenix players Natalie McNeal, Cassie Schiltz, Bailey Butler and head coach Kevin Borseth ascended a ladder, scissors in hand, back there as well – though only on a muted screen hanging in a makeshift media area, near where defeated Vikings Chris Kielsmeier, Colbi Maples and Sara Guerreiro spoke to the press.
For every team that enjoys those fleeting on-court moments, there’s another that must take that ten-mile walk back to the locker room while the celebration begins behind them. Once there, they’ll listen to their coach try to make some sense of what just happened, before a couple of them trudge back out to field questions about something they’d rather not re-live while holding back tears.
But then again, if you ask Kielsmeier, maybe that last part is as important as it is agonizing.
“Green Bay wanted it worse than us, and I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that we had taken a lot from them in the past, and they said ‘not today,’” he said. “I don’t know that enough of our players have felt what it’s like to be on the other side of that. Sometimes in life, until you’re on the other side of it, you don’t have that fuel and that drive that you need.”
Kielsmeier was referring to the fact that his team had eliminated Green Bay from the Horizon League tournament three years in a row, most recently and most notably in the 2023 championship game. After that rout, Borseth quipped that his opponent played a “perfect game” while the Vikings silently went dancing – both literally and figuratively – on a television to his left.
It’s probably not a stretch to say that the Phoenix’s drive for redemption began that day, somewhere behind the reddened eyes of Jasmine Kondrakiewicz sitting at that same press conference table, along with her teammates spared that specific indignity, while different people and visual reminders dropped in to pick at the scab of Green Bay’s defeat in one way or another.
The payoff for those hard minutes, and hours, and days, came on Tuesday, as the new champions won just about every effort play available while expanding their lead in each quarter. Green Bay out-rebounded CSU by a staggering 41-22 count, including 10-4 on the offensive glass, while limiting the Vikings to just 32.7 percent shooting from the floor. That total included a putrid 4-for-21 from three-point range, as the tool that enabled Cleveland State’s wins in both the 2023 HL final and the most recent regular season meeting between the teams deserted Kielsmeier’s squad.
“We knew that the key to the game was having ball movement, and a lot of the time we were stagnant,” Guerreiro said. “We were just out of sync. I think it was more our doing than their doing, but we were not ready to play.”
Natalie McNeal led the way for the victors with 32 points, most of them scored roughly 15 feet away from the basket, while Green Bay played its typical style flawlessly, including 23 assists on 27 made field goals and just 12 turnovers.
As a result, this year, it was Kielsmeier’s turn to be on the other side of the stands, lamenting how well his opponent played.
“They played really well, and we didn’t dictate the way we needed to,” he said. “We were back on our heels offensively, we were really passive offensively. We just didn’t have it today, but a lot of that goes to Green Bay, they really came after us, and their players were ready to play. They did not want to experience some of the frustrations that they experienced in the past.”
“For whatever reason, we just weren’t ready for that kind of intensity, that kind of moment. It’s frustrating, but it’s also part of athletics.”
“Today we just weren’t ready to play,” Maples, who led CSU with 22 points, agreed. “They gapped us really good, really closed the basket, and then when we kicked out, we just weren’t hitting shots. When we beat them last time we hit shots, and today we just didn’t do that.”
This season, Green Bay had the hunger of a team that had endured its share of frustration at the hands of a single opponent, and harnessed it to great effect. That appetite has now transferred to Cleveland State, though the next opportunity to truly apply the new lesson as intended is now one year away.
So for now, CSU will turn its attention to postseason play, likely in the newly-formed Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament, where the Vikings have secured automatic qualification as the Horizon League’s regular season champion.
The field and bracket for the WBIT will be announced shortly after Green Bay hears its name called this Sunday, as the Horizon League’s NCAA Tournament representative.
“We talked about it in the locker room, that we never want to feel this way again,” Maples said. “And we’re going to do our best to not feel this way again, point blank, period.”
“We want to play as hard as we can in this next tournament,” Guerreiro added. “It’s not the one we wanted, but now it comes down to who wants it the most. And we have a good shot to win it, and that’s what we’re going to do. Because this experience was one of the worst.”
