Perdue’s “special performance” leads Vikings past Robert Morris

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Mickayla Perdue established a new career high with 32 points in Cleveland State’s 74-53 victory at Robert Morris on Wednesday morning, but Chris Kielsmeier wasn’t really concerned with that total. Nor was he worried about Perdue’s 5-for-10 effort from three-point range. Even her four assists – an impressive figure, given that the other Vikings totaled 14 made field goals on the UPMC Events Center floor – were an afterthought.

Instead, the CSU head coach wanted to talk about Perdue’s defense. After all, he’s seen Perdue hit five threes and score 30 points before. What he hadn’t seen until Wednesday was the sort of perimeter wall that he knows he’ll need to win in March.

Even though most coaches instinctively veer towards the side of the floor that draws far less attention from fans and media, Kielsmeier and Cleveland State are separated by their extreme reliance on zone defense. Almost every opponent, when facing a zone, will try to shoot over it, and the extent to which they’re successful correlates strongly with whether the Vikings win or lose.

The Colonials were just 4-for-13 from three-point range, an effort led primarily by Perdue and Macey Fegan at the top of the zone, with a healthy dose of Filippa Goula included. The trio also combined for a staggering 11 steals, with starters Fegan and Perdue tallying five and four, respectively.

“Micky was all over the place defensively,” Kielsmeier said. “That’s what we need from her, to defend like that and have that kind of intensity, ferociousness on both ends of the floor. She played with an edge defensively. She always plays that way offensively, but you have to be a complete player to be an elite player, and she was a definite complete player on both ends of the floor.”

Getting Perdue her best scoring total, and possibly the most well-rounded game of her career, certainly wasn’t Cleveland State’s initial game plan. As is nearly always the case, the Vikings attempted to work down low to Jordana Reisma early and often, but RMU managed to stuff the paint to great effect.

“Every night, we’re trying to learn early in the game how they’re going to guard Jordana, what their game plan is going to be,” Kielsmeier said. “They got us on a couple hard doubles, so to play the inside out game is something we’re going to continue to focus on heavy.”

With Robert Morris ahead 4-2, nearing the midway point of the first quarter, CSU began launching shots over the congestion. Perdue, Fegan, and then Perdue again connected from deep to give the Vikings nine quick points and a 13-6 lead that they would never relinquish.

“That’s a great team with, in my opinion, a couple Power 5 players,” Colonials head coach Chandler McCabe said. “Some of the gameplan early on was to try to take away their big three, but then [Fegan] stepped up and hit a couple shots early. Some of those shots were contested, but for the most part, we’ve gotta be better, period. But those are really, really good players.”

The visitors used that aerial assault, the lane that it helped re-open, and, yes, plenty of defense to produce a game-defining 23-4 run over 11 minutes spanning the first and second quarters. Perdue accounted for 15 of those 23 points thanks to four deep balls and an and-one play, though Kielsmeier certainly preferred the fact that his team held RMU to 2-for-17 shooting during that stretch, while Goula and Fegan each picked up a pair of steals.

A freshly-liberated Reisma contributed four points to the run, eventually finishing with 15 in all. Meanwhile, Destiny Leo logged a double-double, including 14 points and ten rebounds.

“They have an incredible three-level scorer, an incredible shooter, and the most efficient player in the country,” McCabe said, referring to Perdue, Leo and Reisma. “It’s hard to guard.”

“They punched us in the mouth, and we just couldn’t respond after that.”

Though Robert Morris was led by Noa Givon’s ten points and a nine-point, seven-rebound effort by Raissa Nsabua, CSU primarily spent the third and fourth quarters simply doing what was required to maintain its lead and advance to 14-4 (6-2 Horizon League), after the massive run gave the Vikings a 28-10 advantage that became 40-25 at the break.

The obvious late-game highlight came with 3:34 remaining when Perdue slapped the ball away from Givon near center court, then cruised in for a layup to shatter her previous high water mark of 31 points, most recently accomplished on November 9th at Chicago State.

“That’s cool,” Kielsmeier said. “I will make sure I highlight to her that her career high was done on the defensive end.”

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