Sometimes it is Easy Being Green
Cleveland State hosted an important visitor for last Thursday’s victory over Youngstown State. Was it a prized recruit? A program legend? Nope, it was Froggy, the Cleveland Cavaliers victory frog.
Froggy, for the uninitiated, began as a meme in November, as the Cavs got off to a 4-0 start. The Instagram account @cleveorleave posted a video of a person dancing in a frog costume, and continued to do so as the winning streak grew. By the time the NBA franchise eventually won 15 consecutive games to open the year, the idea had taken on a life of its own, as things often can on social media.
Before long, Cleveland Vibes, the organization behind the Instagram page, purchased a frog costume and started showing up outside of Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse after Cavaliers victories to dance with fans, typically while holding a cardboard sign showing the team’s record, or simply the letter W. Froggy has become a bona fide local phenomenon, now including her own social accounts and merchandise, and is frequently seen dancing courtside with the likes of Donovan Mitchell and Jarrett Allen.
Thanks @winfroggy for pulling up to the Wolstein Center!! We enjoyed you!!! 🐸 pic.twitter.com/nH5UBIWQnp
— Coach Wilson (@CoachWilson216) January 24, 2025
There’s also an empowerment angle to the whole thing. Froggy is explicitly female, and Cleveland Vibes hasn’t been shy about pointing out that she is an attempt to correct a gender imbalance in the mascot world, while also representing women and girls who enjoy basketball.
With that in mind, it was probably only a matter of time before Froggy celebrated a victory with the city’s highest-level women’s sports team, by breaking out her signature dance moves in the Wolstein Center film room with the Vikings after the YSU game.
A Friend in Need
On Saturday, CSU played what was essentially a mid-season exhibition game against Ohio Christian, and thumped the NCCAA school (iconic leadership book author John C. Maxwell’s alma mater, incidentally) 107-46.
The OCU contest was a replacement for Cleveland State’s planned trip to Niagara in November, doomed thanks to what an NU release termed “illness” within the Purple Eagles program.
Vikings head coach Chris Kielsmeier opened his postgame comments by thanking the Trailblazers for making the trek north from Circleville.
“It wasn’t an ideal situation, but when we lost the game [against Niagara], we had to go to work on finding someone who would play us on really specific dates, which is really hard to do,” he said. “If we’re allowed to play 31 [games], I’m going to try to find a way to play 32, if there’s any way possible.”
“But our players wanted to get on the court, and that’s what it’s all about, so I’m very appreciative of them for coming.”
It wasn’t the first time that Ohio Christian helped CSU out of a scheduling jam. Back on December 18, 2021, OCU played at the Wolstein Center with roughly three days of notice after COVID protocols wiped out Hofstra’s planned visit. Kielsmeier – who frequently says that he’d prefer to never compete with schools outside of NCAA Division I – estimated at the time that he and assistant coach Bob Dunn (the team’s scheduling czar) sifted through 100 no answers before settling OCU, an NAIA team at that point.
Destined to Happen?
It was easy to miss, given that it occurred in the second half of the lopsided OCU game, but Kielsmeier tested out playing Destiny Leo at point guard against the Trailblazers.
The move seemed to work pretty well. Leo was one of just three active Vikings who hadn’t scored by the break after missing her first three field goal attempts, but she quickly threw seven points on the board during the third quarter, after switching positions.
“We were doing some different things that we hadn’t done all year,” Kielsmeier said Monday evening, on his weekly radio show. “We put Destiny back at the one [guard] some of the second half and ran some things for her, and she scored like that. So you ask yourself if we need to look at that more.”
Leo was the Vikings’ primary ballhandler in 2022-23, when she won the Horizon League Player of the Year award while leading CSU to the NCAA Tournament. Last season, before her ACL injury, she largely played at the two-guard, next to Colbi Maples. Then, this year, she moved down to the wing while Maples and Mickayla Perdue served as the team’s initial starting backcourt. She stayed there even after Maples suffered her own season-ending ACL injury, while Macey Fegan eventually joined the first five next to Perdue.
Kielsmeier hasn’t directly stated as much, but it’s not hard to read between the lines and conclude that – at least to some extent – CSU has been careful with Leo during her return from injury. In fact, her three two-point shot attempts against OCU gave her just 26 total this season, as the program’s all-time three-point leader has more or less been a deep ball specialist, at least offensively.
Could Saturday’s experiment signal a coming shift? As always, we’ll see.
Managing the Unmanageable
Another guest on the radio show was Curt Johnsen, Cleveland State’s Director of Basketball Sports Performance – a fancy title for what used to be called a strength and conditioning coach.
Johnsen works with both the men’s and women’s teams at CSU, which can lead to some complex travel and long hours. For example, after the women’s team’s afternoon game at Robert Morris on January 15th, he hustled back to Cleveland to sit on the home bench at the Wolstein Center as the men’s team defeated Northern Kentucky.
Three days later, Johnsen was fortunate to have both teams playing at IU Indianapolis, but even that convenience still involved situations like leaving The Jungle with the women’s team after their win over the Jaguars, then returning with the men’s team roughly an hour later for their day-before practice (“right where I left you,” he quipped as he passed me in the lobby, where I was still writing my recap of the women’s game). The comedy can reach a crescendo during home doubleheaders, when he’ll often have to execute a quick wardrobe change between games, based on what each team’s coaches choose to wear.
Those changeovers involve far more than clothing, as there are plenty of differences between men’s and women’s players, both physically and mentally. For one thing, according to Johnsen, women’s players are more prone to ACL tears, something he tries to fight.
“The angle, with women, from the hip to the knee, that angle itself is very problematic in a lot of ways,” he explained. “That’s what leads to some of the ACL stuff, and on the women’s side, that is kind of the main injury that you try to prevent.”
Obviously, even the best-laid plans can go awry, as both Leo and Maples prove.
“The last couple years, we’ve been terribly unfortunate and had one each year, but as a strength coach, that is your goal,” Johnson continued. “So when you go to gear your warmup to get them ready to play, you try to hide things in there that are ACL prevention and get them better at things on a day-to-day basis. You’re trying to protect them as much as you can.”
