February for the Vikings ended with another thud, but they were able to start March off with a bang. In a week filled with massive leads, the Vikings lost a very tough game at Wright State before coming home and out-lasting Purdue-Fort Wayne. With these two results, the Vikings dropped to second in the Horizon League standings but still secured a bye and home game in the conference tournament. In a crazy, “Horizon’s gonna Horizon” year for the Vikings, they’ve still put themselves a short distance from an NCAA berth.
Away game at Wright State (13-16, 7-11 Horizon League)
With Reece Robinson sidelined with a knee injury, Isaac Abidde stepped back into the starting lineup for the Vikings. The rest of the normal lineup was present for CSU (Tahj Staveskie, Tevin Smith, Ebrima Dibba, and Dylan Arnett) and they got out in a hurry.
Before four minutes had gone by, the Vikings were up 12-5. Staveskie had a three while Abidde and Smith had twos, but it was Arnett who started his outstanding performance early. He added four points and multiple rebounds to lead the Vikings.
Arnett contributed another dunk at the 14:47 mark shortly before Abidde and Staveskie hit back-to-back threes to pad the lead. With just over six minutes gone by in the game, the Vikings were up 22-9 and were playing with a voracity that had been unseen in the last few weeks.
Another Arnett dunk followed a WSU basket as both teams went on offensive runs at the same time. It was at this point Brandon Noel started to get to the basket with incredible ease for the Raiders. It was only baskets by Chase Robinson and Je’Shawn Stevenson that combated Noel’s offensive surge.
Arnett again scored directly after another Noel bucket and it seemed that the Raiders may never get within 10 points again. A Smith three with 8:56 to go in the half put the Vikings up 14.
The next nine minutes would be fairly routine for both sides. Wright State got within eight on a three by Solomon Callaghan but Stevenson neutralized this shot with a three of his own. Next, another Noel layup was negated by an Abidde layup.
Abidde also emphatically blocked Noel with a bit over two minutes to go in the half. This play directly led to another Arnett basket with 1:49 to go in the half. This basket put the Vikings up 16 before a 4-0 Raiders run cut it to 12. But Arnett wanted the last laugh of the half. He scored another layup and the Vikings went into halftime up 45-31.
And then the game ended and the Vikings won…
In reality, WSU came out and made almost every three of the second half. Before the first media timeout of the half, the Raiders had made four threes and closed the game to 51-45. That’s a 14-6 run to start the half.
Bad luck was everywhere for the Vikings. Dibba saved the ball from going out-of-bounds on defense and Noel caught it and put it in the hoop. It was suddenly a two-point game.
Chase Robinson had a nice jumper to go back up four and then things got super sloppy for both teams. Turnover after turnover stagnated the game for a minute before Staveskie and Robinson had the Vikings up eight. Around this same moment, the Raiders were finally called for their first foul of the half (at the 13:03 mark).
An eight-point lead was not enough with the way WSU was shooting from three as they sank another to get back to within five. A nice jumper by Smith put the Vikings up seven at the under-12 minute timeout.
Some more bedlam occurred for both teams that saw neither team score for about two minutes. Lost in all the insanity was a great block by Arnett. Just as WSU cut the deficit to five, Robinson hit a three for the Vikings but the Raiders responded with one of their own plus a foul (and a made free throw).
WSU was finally called for their second foul of the half with 6:20 to go. Smith would split the free throws before Stevenson made a great play for a steal. With a dunk on the ensuing possession, Arnett had a career-high 20 points. CSU was up seven with 5:25 to go.
But…WSU hit a three again and then made two free throws to cut the lead to two with 4:20 left. Stevenson responded with a beautiful drive but 37 seconds later, WSU hit yet another three off an offensive rebound by Noel. With just over two minutes to go, WSU was at the line and made both shots to take the lead 75-74.
CSU would score only two points the rest of the game and were forced to continue to foul WSU. The Raiders scored seven more points and won 82-76.
Key takeaways:
- WSU went 9 for 11 from three in the second half. CSU went 2 for 9. Even though CSU shot better from the floor overall for the game, that discrepancy was the story of the game. Just amazing shooting by the Raiders in the second half.
- Noel and Arnett both finished with 20 points. There were times in the game where both took over for their respective teams. In the second half, the Vikings were unable to get Arnett going as much and that seemed to lead to some of the aforementioned stagnation. If these teams meet in the conference tournament, this will be an interesting matchup to watch.
- CSU had 16 turnovers. Compared to during the winning streak, the Vikings have been turning the ball over in some careless ways as of late. They slightly made up for this with nine steals, but overall, they need to be more careful with the ball.
- Dibba had 0 points…but seven assists! He continues to be a main part of the fabric of the Vikings offense. His play-making ability and vision on the court cannot be overstated.
- CSU only took four free throws while WSU took 19. Seven fouls for an entire game for a team is unfathomable. Nothing more to say.
Home game vs. Purdue-Fort Wayne (19-11, 12-7 HL)
With CSU celebrating Senior Day and Reece Robinson still out, all three seniors started for the Vikings (Chase Robinson in for Abidde). Wanting to have fun on their day, the seniors got started quickly. Smith scored first before Robinson added a three.
In the blink of an eye it was 9-0 and the Mastodons were calling a timeout. Dibba wanted to make sure all the seniors scored early on, so he added a bucket as well. PFW finally got on the board with a three but this was all they had at the second media timeout.
The Vikings were running away with the game (figuratively and literally) as Steveson entered and stole the ball for a layup and free throw. It was suddenly 21-3 a second later and Cleveland fans were having flashbacks to the Celtics-Cavs game the night before (hoping that the team with only three points wouldn’t come back and win this time).
The Mastodons went on a little run (7-0) but Stevenson sank a three to keep the Vikings up by 14. PFW decided to do their best Wright State impression and started hitting threes to cut the lead to 10 then 8 then 7 and then 5.
Smith was able to add a nice layup with 8 seconds to go in the half and was fouled (he missed the free throw). PFW came up empty on their final possession of the half and CSU led by seven points at halftime (31-24).
In the first half, the Mastodons had made only eight shots from the field (and only three from inside the three-point line) but they were still within double-figures.
The rounded-out scoring for the Vikings showed up at the start of the second half. Smith, Staveskie, Robinson, and Arnett all had buckets in the first four minutes to put the Vikings back up 12 points.
As fast as the Vikings offense scored these baskets, the lead disappeared even faster. The Mastodons hit layup after layup plus a three and a mid-range jumper and it was a one-point game. CSU was forced to call a timeout clinging to a 41-40 lead with 11:12 to go.
Staveskie hit a three eight seconds later and a bit of back-and-forth saw the point-differential stuck at five. A beautiful layup and free throw by Cole Franklin put the Vikings back up eight but PFW cut it back down to three shortly after with a Rasheed Bello three.
Smith hit a three for the Vikes and the Mastodons got called for a 10-second violation to help get some separation on the scoreboard. Robinson and Smith both sank free throws before Stevenson had another amazing drive (for a made basket and made free throw) to put the Vikings back up by nine points.
Bello hit another three but Staveskie started the celebration with a three at the 2:09 mark. A free throw frenzy occurred and CSU won handedly 68-57.
Key takeaways:
- The Mastodons were down their top scorer (Jalen Jackson) but Bello was almost unstoppable. He finished with 20 points and had some great drives. CSU played good defense, but he really got around them.
- Smith finished with 17 points and five boards. A nice end to his last regular season game. CSU didn’t have a 20-point scorer this year, but Smith did a great job being the guy who had the ball in the big moments. Smith talked about what he learned this year and what led him to turn into the team’s top scorer. “This year it really made me realize you’re going miss some [shots]. You’re gonna have a bad game. You’re gonna have good games. You just can’t think about it, so just shoot the next one. One of them is gonna fall in eventually.”
- Arnett just missed a double-double with 10 boards and eight points. Stevenson finished with 14 points. Staveskie had 12. Robinson had 10. Team-first basketball at its finest. Robinson (who has been with Coach Daniyal Robinson all three years of his tenure) talked a bit about what Coach Robinson had done for the program. “Coming in, [Coach Robinson] was just super hungry. [He] wanted to make any impact he [could].” Chase Robinson continued, “Through the years he just kept building and just wanted to install his culture with his vision he’s seeing here.” Coach Robinson added some words on Stevenson’s growth over the season. “Je’Shawn was fantastic today on both ends of the floor. He’s been playing well here lately. Those seniors, those guys got a lot of miles on their legs. They’ve got a lot of miles on them. And for him, he looks like he’s got fresh legs [and] he’s got energy…He’s also learned a lot throughout the season. He’s not making the same mistakes he was making in December and January. He looked a little bit more like a veteran out there today.”
- CSU brought their turnover number down a bit for this game (11). The mentality of “hitting singles and not trying to hit home runs” as Coach Robinson says definitely helped keep this down. They had nine steals again and forced 16 turnovers in general. If they can continue to cause issues like this on defense, they can beat anyone.
- CSU had nine more rebounds than PFW. They had ten more second-chance points. These numbers are pure effort. This is just another piece of the puzzle for a team trying to win games in March. After the game Smith pointed to how the team needed to do “whatever we got to do to win” and how they continued to “scrap” the entire game.
With this win, the Vikings have won 20 games in four consecutive seasons for just the second time in school history. They lost out to Robert Morris for the conference regular season title but they still are the second seed in the conference tournament. Coach Robinson put it best. ”This is a special time of year. This is when dreams come true”
Up next for the Vikings:
CSU (20-11, 14-6) will take on the second-lowest remaining seed in the quarterfinals of the Horizon League tournament at the Wolstein Center on Thursday at 8 PM EDT (following the women’s game at 5:30 PM EDT).
