Hooray for Boobie
Assistant coach Chenara Wilson, it’s often said within the program, knows everybody. To some extent, that’s a recurring inside joke, but there’s one problem: it keeps being true.
Last season, Wilson was the force behind getting the Cleveland Cavaliers’ viral victory frog out to a Vikings game, and her connections were also integral to the success of CSU’s annual Health + Hoops game in February.
She might be taking things to a new level this year.
Among the 303 fans in attendance for Cleveland State’s victory over Akron on Sunday – along with every other Vikings home contest so far – was former Cavaliers guard Daniel “Boobie” Gibson. As it turns out, he and Wilson are friends.
“Everyone thinks I know everybody, I don’t know everybody,” Wilson said on Cleveland State’s weekly radio show, in a halfhearted effort to beat the allegations.
“But when I spoke with Boobie, he told me he was going to be our number one fan. So he’s held true to that, and he’s been courtside for each game.”
Gibson was a second-round pick of the Cavs in 2006, and enjoyed a seven-season run with the wine and gold, including 7.8 points per game and helping the franchise to its first-ever conference championship, in 2007. He gained celebrity beyond Cleveland and NBA circles thanks to a brief marriage to singer Keyshia Cole (and, of course, a corresponding reality show).
According to Spotrac, Gibson also made more than $21 million in salary during his NBA career.
“He does buy his own ticket,” Wilson quipped.
Thieves Guild
Though the season is just four games old, it’s hard to do justice to what newcomer Jada Leonard has offered a re-invigorated Vikings’ defense.
Here’s one attempt, though: Leonard has 22 steals to this point. Cleveland State’s most-used starting guards last season, Mickayla Perdue and Macey Fegan, had 49 and 42 all year. Throw in Colbi Maples’ eight steals while playing next to Leonard, and CSU’s starting backcourt is already roughly one-third of the way to its 2024-25 takeaway production.
“I’ve always said that our defense, and how we pressure, and how we’re going to turn teams over, it all starts up top,” head coach Chris Kielsmeier said. “It starts with the ball pressure that we put on by our ones and our twos, and [Leonard and Maples] have really quickly formed a tandem up there that’s going to be…you can talk about it on scouts a lot and say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to take care of the ball. You’ve got to watch those two thieves, they’ve got quick hands and they find a way to get in those passing lanes.’”
Dianne Foster owns the program’s single-season steals record, with 117 in 1982-83, while Shawnita Garland’s 100 in 2009-10 are this century’s best total. As with anything, Leonard’s torrid pace will be tough to maintain over four months, but if the Bronx native can manage that, she could be on her way to a historic season.
Presently, Leonard’s 5.5 steals per game rank third nationally, behind Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and Filipa Barros of California Baptist.
“This team has a chance to be really, really special defensively,” Kielsmeier said. “I’ve been fortunate to coach a lot of really good defensive teams in my coaching career, but this one has the chance to be right up there as one of the best.”
ACHello
Speaking of Maples, the 2023-24 Horizon League Player of the Year alleviated any concerns about her recovery from last season’s ACL tear almost immediately after returning to the lineup, scoring 29 points in the Vikings’ season opener against Chicago State.
Maples and Kielsmeier both insist that her defense and conditioning aren’t quite where they need to be just yet, but all in all, she very much looks the part of someone who can lead Cleveland State to a successful campaign, on and off the court.
During the radio show, Kielsmeier partially re-directed a question about his point guard, and spent a couple minutes praising athletic trainer Gabby Abramczyk, the rest of the program’s support staff, and Maples herself for that (relatively) fast recovery.
“There are a lot of players – I shouldn’t say a lot – but there are players in the country that tore ACLs last November and December and still aren’t playing games yet,” he said. “Colbi was fully cleared at the end of September, in part because of her hard work.”
“Yes, it falls on Colbi, but the team that was around Colbi that put her in a position to potentially have success, and be back out there doing what she loves, those people need a lot of credit, and it just goes to the team that we have around our program and what our athletic department puts into each and every aspect of our program that maybe a lot of people behind the scenes don’t really understand.”
It’s impossible to say which players Kielsmeier had in mind with his “aren’t playing games yet” comment (even if asked, he certainly wouldn’t share that information with the media), but it is a supported statement. Nebraska’s Natalie Potts, the 2023-24 Big Ten Freshman of the Year, tore her ACL on November 19, 2024 – 11 days after Maples – and has yet to return for the Cornhuskers.
Another high-profile example from recent years involves Connecticut’s Azzi Fudd. The Huskies superstar tore her ACL on November 12, 2023, then saw her next game action on November 20, 2024, after missing UConn’s first three games of the season.
More Power
Last year, the Horizon League went 2-23 against power conference opponents, with Green Bay (at home against DePaul) and Purdue Fort Wayne (over Butler in the WNIT) grabbing the two victories. Very few of the losses were particularly close; only three were decided by ten points or fewer.
Though it’s still early, the 2025-26 season has a bit of a different feel to it. PFW collected the HL’s first power conference victory of the season last week, stunning sister school Purdue on Rylee Bess’ late three. The conference has lost ten such games, but three of them came by four points or less.
Those lists include one particularly excruciating result from November 7th, when the Mastodons’ Alana Nelson appeared to hit a triple to take Xavier to overtime, only to have the bucket ruled a two-pointer on review.
So, superficially at least, the league seems more competitive against moneyed programs this year.
Nevertheless, Kielsmeier was fully in coach mode ahead of Friday’s game at Northwestern, Cleveland State’s only shot at one of those teams this year.
“I hope our players believe that we can go there and win,” he said. “I hope our players aren’t wowed by it. It’s a Big Ten school. They’re supposed to beat us, but you play the games for a reason. The ball’s going to tip at 6:30 [central time] on Friday night, and if we are ready to go and play really confident and play really well, we’ll have a shot to beat them. That’s the mission and the plan for the week.”
The Wildcats, as it happens, have already played a Horizon League opponent, squeaking out a 67-64 victory over IU Indianapolis in their season opener. NU is 4-0, but three of those wins came against mid-major programs, and none were decided by more than 15 points (SIU Edwardsville and Maryland Eastern Shore were the other two opponents).
CSU’s last power conference victory came against DePaul early in the 2022-23 season. But, if nothing else, Northwestern certainly appears more vulnerable than Maddy Siegrist’s Villanova, Caitlin Clark’s Iowa, or Jaloni Cambridge’s Ohio State, the Vikings’ only three chances at the accomplishment since toppling the Blue Demons.
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