On Thursday evening in Detroit, Cleveland State thudded to a 76-68 setback against a hardworking Detroit Mercy team to fall to 7-2 overall.
Here are five observations from the Horizon League opener for both teams:
1. Outside of Calihan Hall, an arctic blast knocked temperatures down into the single digits during and after the game. Inside the storied arena, Chris Kielsmeier’s expression and tone might have been even chillier, when it came time to discuss his defense’s performance.
“Our defense all night wasn’t very good,” he began. “No matter what we tried to do defensively, we ran a lot of man-to-man tonight, tried to press them, we just…”
Kielsmeier paused for a few seconds to reset his thoughts.
“This game is pretty simple, when it comes down to looking at results and stats and whatnot. We gave up 76 points tonight. You’re going to have a hard time winning any game against anybody doing that defensively.”
UDM coach Kiefer Haffey was thrilled with how his squad responded to the unexpected defensive adjustments.
“Our point guard play was good, so they had poise, and getting us mixed into different things,” he said. “We didn’t get chaotic. Early when they mixed in the man, that’s not something you see Cleveland State do very often, but our girls had the ability to just flip back into our man offense. I thought they were really good, in terms of getting that stuff and getting the good spacing.”
“You don’t see that, Cleveland State is a pretty hardcore 2-3 zone team.”
The Vikings abandoning their trademark zone is perhaps the cleanest readily-available indicator of the team’s struggles on a given night; as Haffey mentioned, it’s just not something Kielsmeier does if things are going well.
And they weren’t, by just about any measure.
CSU only forced three Detroit Mercy turnovers in the first half – none in the opening quarter – and watched the Titans shoot 58.7 percent from the field for the game. Outside of Brendha Schwartz, who only participated for four minutes, each UDM player who saw the floor scored at least four points. Save point guard Nisea Burrell (who only tried three field goals and scored seven times at the free throw line) everyone also shot 44 percent or better.
In short, nearly the entire home bench had a good night.
“You’ve got to be far better than what we were tonight, or you don’t deserve to win,” Kielsmeier said. “I think that’s probably the toughest thing for me to swallow. We don’t deserve to win this game. We got outplayed, we got outcoached, we got outexecuted. We were way too soft. And reality is reality. You’ve got to own those things.”
On the rare occasions when the Titans missed a shot, they tended to get second chances. Despite losing the rebounding battle by an average of 13.2 across their first six games, Detroit Mercy dominated the glass against the Vikings, by a 35-23 margin. Several in that count were 50-50 balls that always seemed to end up in UDM’s hands.
“We’re not physical enough,” Kielsmeier said. “We’re not tough enough. We’re too soft.”
2. Despite those struggles, at several points in the contest, it appeared as if Cleveland State might find enough to scrape together an ugly win.
The Vikings pulled to within 42-37 at halftime, and continued to push forward over the first five minutes of the third quarter. They even forced turnovers on three consecutive Titans possessions at one juncture, powering most of a quick 9-2 run that gave the visitors their first lead since the opening stages of the affair. That surge culminated in an Izabella Zingaro bucket with 4:36 left in the period.
CSU would not score for the next 7:04, transforming a one-point advantage back into a nine-point fourth quarter deficit, which essentially dictated the rest of the game.
During the drought, the Vikings attempted nine field goals. Eight were three-pointers, all misses (obviously), driving a good chunk of the team’s 5-for-23 effort from deep for the game. Nobody was immune, as Colbi Maples, Jada Leonard, Macey Fegan, Ella Van Weelden, and Sarah Hurley were each off the mark during the decisive run.
If that feels like something a bit outside of CSU’s identity, that’s because it was essentially a reaction to a reaction.
“They really packed it in on us, and I’ve known for quite some time that when we get into league play, teams are going to do this to us and we’re going to have to hit perimeter shots,” Kielsmeier said. “Most of those were good looks.”
“We shoot 30-something percent from three-point range today, we probably win the game, but it hasn’t been consistent all year. So the offense is stagnant. It’s too much one-on-one, we need to get better ball movement. We’ve got to make better reads to free up better shots.”
3. Back on November 21st at Northwestern, the Vikings were foiled largely by Claire Keswick. The Wildcats sophomore had played all of 31 minutes during her college career, before burying six three-pointers in 25 against CSU. Thursday night presented a similar situation, even if the execution was vastly different.
After Zingaro scored two early baskets to give her team a 4-2 advantage, Haffey quickly called Addisen Mastriano’s number 41.
Mastriano, like Keswick, has been a lightly-used sophomore. The Richmond, IN native made it into 11 games as a rookie, and saw a total of 36 minutes across UDM’s first six games this year. Crucially, though, she stands 6-3, offering size to an otherwise-smallish roster, and a credible counter to Zingaro.
She turned out to be much more than that, scoring a team-high 18 points on 8-for-10 shooting. Mastriano also helped clog up the middle enough defensively to limit Cleveland State centers Zingaro and Laurel Rockwood to eight combined field goal attempts, while making the Vikings a bit three-ball happy.
“Playmakers make plays when your number’s called,” Kielsmeier said. “Can you get it done? She certainly did. She had a heck of a night. She’ll remember it for the rest of her life probably. Or she should. I hope she does.”
Mastriano definitely did make plays. She rumbled down the floor for a layup after stealing an attempted entry pass in the first quarter, a notable early tone-setter. Later, her five straight points, including a triple with 2:18 remaining, essentially slammed the door shut on the Vikings.
“I didn’t even second-guess it, I kind of just went for it,” Mastriano said of her clinching deep ball. “[I’ve taken] a lot of reps previously, and practice, workouts, I think that’s all what came here tonight.”
4. If there was one bright spot for CSU, it might have been Maples, who scored a game-high 25 points and added a pair of steals.
During one phase of the fourth quarter, the MBA student tried to grit out a Vikings comeback, nearly singlehandedly. She scored six straight points, on two driving buckets, followed by a steal and pull-up jumper, to wrestle her team back to within 62-58 with 3:11 to go.
However, that sequence went no further, as it was immediately followed by Mastriano’s signature moment.
“The kid loves the game, [and] hates to lose,” Kielsmeier said. “She tried to will us tonight, but she just didn’t have enough help. [We’re] just relying on her too much.”
The coach was quick to point that Maples’ defense still isn’t where he’d like it to be, but on a night where virtually nothing went well, the point guard offered a fleeting moment of hope.
5. Before Thursday, Cleveland State hadn’t lost its Horizon League opener since 2020-21, when the Vikings suffered a pair of blowout losses to defending conference champion IUPUI, then led by four-time HL Player of the Year Macee Williams.
Those usually-strong starts to league play have proven extremely valuable, helping CSU secure favorable seeding arrangements at tournament time.
That 2020-21 season ended with the Vikings in sixth place, though they managed to grab a quarterfinal upset at Green Bay and end their run in Indianapolis (subsequently, of course, Mariah White and company went on to win the WBI championship). Kielsmeier has guided his team to a top-four seed each year after that, placements that guaranteed a first-round bye and a home quarterfinal game.
Now, instead of a similarly-solid launch, the Vikings have lost for the second time in their last three trips to Calihan Hall. And they’ll have to bounce back on Saturday at Oakland, after dropping their 2024-25 excursion to the OU Credit Union O’rena.
Furthermore, changes to the tournament’s format – intended to reward strong regular-season performance – have made the road to a title a bit more difficult for all but the top three teams.
So how important is Saturday’s game?
“I mean, every game’s important,” Kielsmeier said. “Whether we won this game or not, it’s still a really important basketball game when you’re chasing the things that we’re chasing. And after a performance like this, what the hell are we chasing? What we’ve got to show is that we can win a game in the Horizon League. That’s what Saturday’s about.”
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