CSU Courtside (November 25th)

Chicago Blues

If there was a theme to the early segments of this week’s Cleveland State Women’s Basketball Radio Show on Monday, it was probably regret concerning Friday’s game at Northwestern. Clearly, most involved with the program seem to understand that that the Vikings had one of those all-too-rare opportunities for a definitional win against a power conference opponent, and let it slip by.

The Vikings were tied with NU, and held possession of the ball, with less than two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. As it turned out, the Wildcats scored the final seven points of the contest, but Chris Kielsmeier was more concerned with earlier segments of the evening.

“As a coaching staff, we try to get our players to understand [that] you gave away how many points throughout the course of that entire night that made the game close with two minutes left, and we just don’t quite have a good enough understanding of that. We’re giving away a lot of points on out of bounds [plays], defense, free throws, blockouts.”

One player who seems to understand? Kielsmeier’s graduate student point guard, Colbi Maples, who echoed the coach’s comments.

“In the moment, you don’t think about all the points you give away early in the game,” she said. “You always think about the last minutes of the game, that it’s how we lost the game. But it started early. We had the 20-9 lead, or whatever, and then in the second quarter, we let them play their game. And that’s ultimately what we did for the rest of the game.”

A lot of that frustration stems from the fact that CSU only gets one scheduled shot at a high-major school during a typical season, so winning one of those games is no longer on the table for the current roster…unless the postseason provides another chance.

6-4 For 3 Triple Play

During that Northwestern game, Izabella Zingaro did something nearly unheard of for a Cleveland State center: try a three-pointer. Twice, in fact, with the second attempt taking place during a key late-game possession when the Vikings badly needed to score.

That was entirely on purpose.

“We went to her from the three-point line a couple times without hesitation, because she makes it as much as anybody we have in practice,” Kielsmeier said.

CSU has had centers in the recent past who, during their pre-college careers, proved to be capable shooters from some distance, including Jordana Reisma and Paulina Hernandez. Neither earned the vote of confidence Zingaro apparently has; before Friday, Vikings centers had attempted exactly three triples over the last five years, generally unplanned efforts against an expiring clock.

However, it seems as if more deep balls from the 6-4 Canadian are on the way.

“For us as a coaching staff, our job to be able to get her those three-balls is important, even though nobody else really knows that she can do that right now,” Kielsmeier said. “We know that she can do that, and we would give her that opportunity to get those shots again, and have full confidence in her to be able to hit them.”

March in November

Cleveland State, of course, is hosting St. Bonaventure, Radford, and Valparaiso for an MTE in Woodling Gymnasium this week. It’s obviously a nice opportunity for the team to stay at home (well, an adopted home, in most cases) for Thanksgiving, though playing three times in four days – compared to the typical two games at most destination MTEs – does heavily compress the usual scouting and preparation cycles.

It doesn’t help matters that Wednesday’s opponent, SBU, has presented an interesting dilemma, as the Bonnies haven’t played against a zone this year.

From the outside, that might appear to be a positive, given that head coach Jim Crowley’s squad is about to experience something largely unfamiliar. Sure, it might turn out that way, though for coaches playing their unending chess match, that’s not enough. They also need to know their opponent’s reaction, then plan a couple moves ahead.

“We’re looking back years trying to figure out what they’re going to do [against a zone],” said assistant coach Jenna Bolstad, who was responsible for the St. Bonaventure scout.

SBU did not handle Cleveland State’s zone well in a 64-40 Vikings win at the 2022 version of this week’s MTE, though that game occurred while Crowley was in the middle of a Borsethian run at Providence, between two separate tenures with the Bonnies. So that game tape probably isn’t terribly valuable.

As exhausting as the whole experience might be for all involved, there’s at least a little bit of intentionality behind it, related to the Horizon League’s tournament in Indianapolis.

“I always have in the back of my head, to get to Indy and win, you’re guaranteed to have to play back-to-back days, and there’s no better way to simulate that, and get better for it, than to actually have gone through it,” Kielsmeier said. “And this year now, with the change of the format, there’s going to be a team that possibly has to win three games in three days up there.”

“So why not challenge them in a setting that really is going to push them mentally, as much as physically? Everybody’s going to get tired this week at some point.”

Jenna Montana

Bolstad made her radio show debut on Monday, and reviewed her journey to the Vikings’ staff this season. At least until two years ago, she was essentially a Montana lifer (with occasional forays into the Dakotas), and had a good head coaching job at Miles Community College, one of her alma maters.

That changed with an out-of-the-blue phone call from a friend, Adam Tandez, who recruited Bolstad to join him on the staff at Northern Illinois in 2024-25. That experience only lasted for one season, as the Huskies dismissed head coach Lisa Carlsen in the spring.

However Tandez, who is now on the staff at Western Michigan with former Horizon League notables Kate Achter and Audra Emmerson, wasn’t done helping, as he also happened to have a direct line to Kielsmeier.

“Hey, [Kielsmeier] is looking for an assistant. Are you interested?” Bolstad recalled him saying. “And I was like, well, I kind of thought other people were involved in the process. And he’s like, no, no, no, I need your resume now, send it on.”

Tandez is clearly a nice guy to have in your corner through a brutal job market.

Bolstad saw the CSU position as a growth opportunity, but not really on the basketball side. Largely, it was a chance for someone from a 1,000-person town in big sky country to try something new.

“I want to experience city life,” she said. “That was one of…everyone’s like, what’s your drawback? I’m like, well, basketball’s not my drawback. It’s can I live in the city? Can I be around that?”

Undoubtedly, the folks at the HL office – which is trying extremely hard to sell the notion of Northern Illinois as a Chicago school for the sake of its #MajorCities branding – are happy that Bolstad didn’t go any further than saying that Cleveland is her first city experience.

Show host Al Pawlowski had no such concerns.

“When you were at Northern Illinois, it’s funny, some people say, oh, isn’t that Chicago?” he offered, during one question to Bolstad. “And no, it’s not. It’s 65 miles west.”