The number of text messages that Cleveland State head coach Chris Kielsmeier receives is staggering, far beyond the point of the sort of convenient analysis that would offer even a modicum of comprehension.
During one two-hour period of a mostly-routine June day, he counted 48 fresh and still-unanswered texts, and it’s tempting to extrapolate the size of his red notification bubble from there. Hundreds? All in a day’s work. Thousands? Quickly and often. Half a million? Entirely possible over the totality of his tenure with the Vikings.
Then there are the phone calls, Zoom meetings, in-person conversations, and just about every other form of extant communication.
That count also doesn’t consider his staff and their independent, yet connected, work. Those figures probably aren’t quite as high – after all, people instinctively try the head coach first for everything from job references to, well, media hits – but nevertheless contribute significantly to the volume of data flowing in and out of the Wolstein Center.
Ultimately, though, most of those messages are in service of what became the most daunting number of all this spring: 10, the number of players Cleveland State needed to recruit over a two-month period to build its 2025-26 roster, thanks mostly to nine transfer portal departures.
“You just have to react and respond,” Kielsmeier said. “I’ve been a head coach for a long time and I learned very early on that your ability to be a successful head coach is going to be very dependent on your ability to adjust and adapt to whatever it is.”
“And the ability to adapt and adjust to whatever it is these days is completely different than anything that we’ve dealt with in the past.”
Meanwhile, in Division I outposts from Philadelphia to Santa Barbara, thousands of college basketball players initiated their own sort of numbers game.
Just as there are no guarantees for coaches trying to hold their programs together from year to year, transferring players often face their own bit of uncertainty. According to portal-tracking website WBB Blog, just 68 percent of DI transfers found a new home within DI last year. Twenty percent ended up dropping to a lower level to continue their careers, while the other 12 percent remained unsigned.
“It’s so stressful because I wasn’t sure I would have something good for me,” said Shay Magassa, who left La Salle after starting every game for the Explorers in 2024-25. “I feel like where I was last year, they cannot really help me to reach my goals, so I took the risk.”
Magassa’s story, or something approximating it, played out roughly 1,500 times across the country, blowing up the phones of not only Kielsmeier, but each of his peers similarly seeking to hold the chairs where players landed when the music stopped. The bulk of that process took place over roughly ten weeks between March 24th, when the transfer portal opened for most, and early June, when teams briefly reconvene during the summer.
If that sounds a bit chaotic, well, that’s because it is.
It’s also relatively new, given that unchecked movement has only truly existed since last summer, when the NCAA (prodded along by lawsuits) punctuated a five-year erosion of restrictions by formally dropping its year-in-residence requirement for multiple-time transfers.
Kielsmeier, however, finds comfort in the idea that while some things change, often significantly, the essence of what he’s doing hasn’t. Fundamentally, he’s still trying to find hoopers who fit CSU’s program both as a person and a player, while carrying a certain x-factor, which he describes as a “[hunger for] that really special basketball experience.” He just needs to do it a lot more often.
“If you don’t have a plan and you don’t know what you’re doing, then your ability to adjust and adapt isn’t there,” he said. “You have to process things, you have to learn things, you have to put a plan together, and then respond, then react. And if you don’t have the early part figured out, it’s tough.”
“Getting through 48 text messages is a way of life as a head coach. That’s been going on for a long time. Even though I’ve been doing it long enough where I didn’t even have a cell phone when I first started. So that shows you how much things have changed.”
That adaptability and adherence to his process paid dividends relatively quickly, as Ella Van Weelden committed to the Vikings on April 17th, mere days after former program stars Mickayla Perdue and Destiny Leo announced their departures.
Van Weelden decided to end her second foray into the transfer portal spin cycle (she began her college career at Valparaiso before moving to Northern Colorado in 2024-25) after a visit that showed she had more in common with Kielsmeier than a home state of Iowa.
“I realized that Coach K has something going on that’s pretty special,” she explained. “And compared to all the other schools, I really trusted his vision and his vision for the team and his vision for me. And I think it really clicked in my brain that it would be a good place for me to spend my last year. Once I got here and I met everyone, it was really apparent that Cleveland State was where I wanted to end my career.”
Magassa, unofficially the Vikings’ fourth incoming transfer of the season, had a similar experience in town.
“I feel like here is a good fit for me,” the Parisian said. “When I came on my visit, Coach K showed me some clips of me playing and he showed me how I can improve, how I can get better. And it meant a lot to me because I feel like he can help me to progress.”
More talent quickly followed, including an instant post rotation of Laurel Rockwood and Izabella Zingaro, then guards Jada Leonard and Queen Ruffin. Within a couple weeks of Van Weelden’s commitment, CSU once again had enough bodies at each position to play a game.
The numbers, and the diverse-yet-parallel interests that produce them, eventually added up to the 14 student-athletes who will compete for Cleveland State in 2025-26, a season that unofficially began with summer workouts last week.
Compared to a year ago, when the Vikings returned a stacked, veteran-heavy roster that was eventually selected as the Horizon League’s preseason favorite, the current squad has yet to find any of the continuity that Kielsmeier always sees as essential to his system’s success. In fact, it’s more closely resembled the first day of school than a polished team, according to director of basketball operations Hanna Zerr.
“That’s something that I think we’re all trying to get through,” Van Weelden observed. “It’s definitely a learning curve, but it’s a fun learning curve that I think that is a good place to be in.”
Advancement from there will be the responsibility of not only the coaching staff, but CSU’s three returning players, including Colbi Maples, Macey Fegan, and Sarah Hurley. For the latter two, it’s been an abrupt transformation from the summer of 2024, when they were brand new to the team, though that also means they’re acutely aware of their new teammates’ experiences.
“It’s definitely a role reversal because last year coming in, it’s awkward for the first two weeks until you know people and it kind of sucks a little bit,” Fegan recalled. “You don’t know anything, you don’t know anyone. You’re just trying to find your way.”
“But now I’m on the other side. I have familiarity and it’s more comfortable for me. So I like that. And I think it’s easier for me to be on this side than it was coming in on the other side.”
“She’s embracing the role of being a returner,” Kielsmeier added. “I think she’s embracing being somebody that the others can lean on. For me, it’s been really cool to see her embrace that role. Like, ‘I’m here to help you.’ And she’s doing it really.”
While Fegan found a new assertiveness on the court and has translated it into modeling behavior, the often-reserved Maples unlocked that trait in a different area.
It’s probably an understatement to say that the 2023-24 Horizon League Player of the Year has had a rough six months, beginning with the ACL tear last November that wiped out nearly her whole season. Her ongoing recovery was then interrupted by watching a lot of her best friends leave the program, including Perdue, Maples’ backcourt running mate during her breakout season.
Zerr called what followed “trauma bonding,” as Maples remained in town during the offseason and used her multi-dimensional challenges to become the sort of leader that the moment demanded, including helping with the mundane, yet crucial, operational details that allow the program to keep moving forward.
“It was finding that new reality,” Zerr said. “Some of it is her working through that reality by herself too, of what’s she doing? Will she be the same person finding that new identity for herself? So it’s just been pouring into her. Then I think she’s seen the benefit of we’re willing to, as an entire staff, get everything that we have to these student-athletes.”
Following that lead, Maples has become the Vikings’ off-court point guard, helping to carry out the calls from the sideline, just as she did so effectively in game action two years ago.
As one example, Zerr cited the fact that she had to scramble to find a slew of apartments in downtown Cleveland on short notice for the team’s newcomers. The catch: they each wanted to live in the same off-campus building as the others, a welcome-but-inconvenient situation.
Maples became another, albeit unofficial, tenant during arrival weekend while her new teammates moved in, establishing a career high for assists that won’t be found on any stat sheet.
Later on, Zerr and Kielsmeier were met by a moment of panic on the realization that neither had told strength coach Tim Bilbrey, new to working with the team this year, about their pre-practice stretching routine. Zerr rushed to the court, only to find Maples leading everyone through their paces.
It was a compelling enough transformation for the DOBO, who prides herself on her ability to independently solve problems, to reluctantly add another text message to the ever-present pile in Kielsmeier’s inbox.
The gist of that communication: “She’s now pouring into other people in ways that I didn’t ever think she could do, it has been just astonishing.”
Cleveland State probably won’t be picked as the HL favorite this season – which is perfectly fine, just ask any coach of any team since the day some starved-for-content writer invented preseason polls – thanks largely to the Vikings’ turnover. But, while it is true that numerous players and staff left, it’s perhaps also true that the right people stayed.
If nothing else, and so far, they’ve certainly manifested just about every cliché covering how sports, and their inherent adversity, reveal character.
“They believed in this program for a reason and believed that they wanted to be here for a reason,” Kielsmeier observed. “And a big part of that is they have a comfort zone and a level of expectation and they’re embracing the role now. How can I give back to others? And it’s really cool to see.”
The returning players and coaches certainly welcome summer workouts, if not for how their legs feel afterwards, for their symbolism as a new beginning on the other side of an unwelcome scramble. At the same time, the newcomers also have the chance to settle their own sort of chaos after a plunge into the unknown, and begin acclimating to their new roles in a new city.
“I think there’s an aspect that you got to prove that you are here for a reason,” Van Weelden said. “But at the same time you got to be confident in your role and why you’re here. And I think having a good balance of that is how you’re going to be successful.”
“You’re here for a reason and you’re going to keep proving yourself over and over again. And hopefully we mesh together well, and make a good team.”
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