On January 3rd, Oakland upset Cleveland State 71-68 in Rochester, MI, an obvious low point of the Vikings’ season so far, and a game that placed CSU a clear third in the Horizon League pecking order, behind Purdue Fort Wayne and Green Bay.
The Golden Grizzlies were led that evening, as they generally are, by Maddy Skorupski and Macy Smith, two of the conference’s top ten scorers. The backcourt duo combined for 47 points on 18-for-35 shooting, overcoming an 18-point, seven-rebound effort from Sara Guerreiro and causing a frustrated Chris Kielsmeier to lament that his defensive system was “just not firing. It’s just all over the place.”
For the rematch on Saturday afternoon in the Wolstein Center, the Vikings didn’t fix everything that led to last month’s stunner, but they at least got it half right, and half right was more than enough to produce a 79-58 victory that was never in doubt after the second quarter.
Skorupski was limited to ten points (eight of those after the game was essentially decided), and only made two field goals in her 11 attempts. Though Cleveland State seemed to play the Michigan State transfer with an extra bit of aggression, starting guard Macey Fegan – a player as responsible for defending her as any other Viking – said that the gameplan was identical to the January contest, it was just carried out better during the second attempt.
“I just think we executed this time,” she said. “Last time, obviously [Skorupski and Smith] had 47 points on us. The coaches pounded it into our heads more, because we knew they couldn’t score that many again for us to win. We changed our mindset a little bit.”
That’s half of the story. The other half, as Kielsmeier was quick to point out, is that Smith was even better than she was five weeks ago, as the senior from Minneapolis matched a career high with 25 points. Her effort was highlighted by a 5-for-10 mark from three-point range, most of her 7-for-14 shooting line.
“We didn’t change much with [Smith],” the coach half-joked. “That kid can play and hit shots, she’s a good player.”
“Oakland hit a lot of really tough shots in the first game, they really did,” he continued. “I don’t think we played great there, but we didn’t play bad, they beat us. They hit a few more shots the first game, and this game, we hit a few more shots.”
In this case, several of the “few more shots” were provided by Destiny Leo. With Kailey Klein, the program legend whose career scoring record Leo is presently pursuing, in attendance, the graduate student knocked down a trio of three-pointers during a 1:14 span of the second quarter. Those shots transformed what had been a close contest for 14 minutes into a 31-20 CSU advantage, a margin that would never be challenged the rest of the way.
It was just the latest occurrence of an obvious pattern in the school’s all-time three-point leader: Leo tends to connect on deep balls in clusters.
“The second one, I’m definitely in rhythm,” she said. “The second one is usually off of a set that Coach K calls, so I’m getting that confidence from him, because he’s out there calling the set, expecting me to make the shot.”
Leo finished 5-for-9 from three-point range, most of her team-high 20 points.
“Destiny had an amazing game,” Kielsmeier said, before clarifying that he wasn’t just talking about her well-established shooting ability.
“Destiny can score 20 points, everyone knows that. But boy, she’s getting better defensively, and she’s taken so much pride in it. She’s a really good defender, and you love to see kids continue to try to grow, figure new things out about their game, how to play at a higher level. She’s just the epitome of a kid that really identifies her weaknesses and goes to work on making them better.”
Leo had plenty of help on both ends of the floor, including from Guerreiro, who contributed 16 points, eight assists, and six rebounds. Several of those assists ended up in the hands of Jordana Reisma, who scored 15 points on 6-for-7 shooting and teamed with Mya Moore to keep OU’s post rotation in plenty of foul trouble.
The victory was Cleveland State’s 20th of the season, against five losses, marking the fifth time in the last six seasons that the Vikings have reached what’s generally considered the “good season” milestone in college basketball.
“For others,” assistant coach Chenara Wilson interjected.
“This is hard,” Kielsmeier added. “This is really hard. What our coaching staff puts into it, the amount of hours, the commitment and passion they show that inspires me, our players, I can coach them hard and push them to try to get better and come back wanting more.”
In other words, even if CSU’s defense is only halfway there, Kielsmeier expects it to be a matter of time before the other half shows up.
