Cleveland State (5-11, 1-4 Horizon League prior to the week’s games) entered the week with only one conference win and exited it the same way. Its three-headed monster of known issues — rebounding, turnovers and fouls — all showed up, and the Vikings couldn’t compete against the Golden Grizzlies and Titans.
Against Oakland University (8-8, 4-1 HL) on Jan. 9, the regulars started for the Vikings — Jaidon Lipscomb, Tre Beard, Dayan Nessah, Preist Ryan and Josiah Harris. They started the game up 5-0 but the same issues were already showing themselves for CSU.
The Vikes gave up four offensive rebounds within about two minutes of the game and they committed a turnover on their third trip into the offensive end.
On top of the normal problems, CSU also went cold from the field after its first two shots, and the Golden Grizzlies scored 11 straight points to grab a lead for the first time. Five of the 11 points were on free throws as the Vikings continued to be aggressive on defense, yet not aggressive enough on the boards.
A good example of the Vikings’ issues right now was a missed three-pointer that was grabbed by Oakland on a long rebound and then quickly thrown up court to Zaire Wells for an easy, powerful dunk.
The Vikings finally got on the board again with two Beard free throws on an Oakland head coach Greg Kampe technical foul and a basket by Chevalier Emery.
The Golden Grizzlies started to open up their offense with two more offensive rebounds and a foul, which gave Oakland two more made free throws. Two more offensive boards led directly to two OU threes. The Vikings were getting beat up and were down by 10.
Foster Wonders stopped the run with a three of his own, but Wells grabbed yet another offensive rebound and laid it in for two points to keep the Vikings far away.
The Golden Grizzlies grabbed every rebound in their sight even though both teams were cold on the shooting front. The disparity on the glass kept OU up by 10 on another Zaire fast break dunk and a free throw.
Luckily for the Vikings, Beard was immediately fouled and sank two free throws before a goaltending call plus a Ryan shot on the next two CSU possessions. This run helped them crawl within four points of OU.
A Ryan three-pointer put the Vikings within one possession 28-25 with under five minutes to go in the half, but this was the turning point of the entire game.
Oakland went on a 17-0 run to get to the end of the half, while Cleveland State couldn’t get a basket to fall. Five of these points were at the free-throw line as well.
Nessah connected on a tough two-point shot with two seconds to go in the half but the game was basically out of reach, 45-27.
The Vikings came out hot in the second half and collected points on each of their first eight possessions of the half. The Golden Grizzlies tried to keep the lead high, but CSU chipped away to get it within eight with over 15 minutes left to play.
With the deficit under 10, the second scoring drought of the game for the Vikings took place. A layup was the only points they were able to muster while Oakland stretched the lead back to 21 within less than four minutes.
CSU was unable to score and its fast pace again led to turnovers and fouls on the enduring fast breaks — and Oakland didn’t miss their free shots.
Head coach Rob Summers attempted to shake up the game by bringing in guys who haven’t played a ton in conference games such as David Giddens, Manny Hill and Kevo St. Hilaire.
At its worst before the ending possessions, the deficit ballooned to 28 on a basket with just over 10 minutes to go. The energy and rebounding that had helped get the Vikings back in the game had all but disappeared.
Nessah did his best to keep CSU in the game, but its defense was not able to stop Oakland in transition or from deep.
Summers emptied his bench with four minutes to go, the deficit grew to 31, and the Vikings lost 97-74 as Oakland barely missed the century mark.
Key Takeaways:
- 52-to-39 was the final rebounding disparity. Oakland had 24 offensive rebounds and 27 second chance points. Those numbers don’t need analysis.
- CSU only connected on four threes-pointers out of 27 attempts. Oakland went 9-for-33 (27.3%), which isn’t good, but compared to 14.8% from a team that wants to shoot a lot of threes, it’s good enough.
- These missed threes also led to many of the long rebounds by Oakland that led to 21 fast break points. CSU continued to not run back fast for transition defense and gave up a lot of easy points.
- Six Golden Grizzlies went for double figures — four had eight or more rebounds. They are able to attack from multiple sides at all times and the Vikings don’t have enough on defense to compete.
- Oakland shot 17 more free throws than CSU. The Vikings scored 50 points in the paint but still were unable to get to the line. This inability to draw fouls has been an issue in conference play and its over-fouling on the other side has led to more easy points for their opponents.
The Vikings rounded out their three-game road stint against Detroit Mercy (6-9, 3-3 HL) on Jan. 11. CSU rolled out the normal starters for its second game of the week, and in a way the game was over after 107 seconds.
After Orlando Lovejoy put the Titans up 2-0, Ryan hit a three to give the Vikings their first and only lead of the day. At the 18:13 mark in the first half, former Viking Tyler Spratt hit a three to put DM back on top and they would never be down again.
Nessah did tie the game at five, but TJ Nadeau hit a three of his own on a pass from Spratt, and the Vikings were already in trouble on the rebounding side of things. Two offensive boards on their next possession led directly to two Detroit Mercy free throws while Beard tried to keep the Vikings in the game with a three.
Another Titan three by Keshawn Fisher was negated by a Nessah three but UDM continued to get to the line and gradually grew their lead to ten halfway through the period.
An 8-0 run highlighted by a Fisher dunk off a Lovejoy steal stretched their lead all the way to 16. The Vikings tried to stay in the game with their three-point shooting, Lipscomb and Emery hit back-to-back shots to get it down to 12, but the Titans kept getting offensive rebounds to get points.
With just under four minutes to go in the half, the Vikings had their best stretch of the game as they went on an 11-0 run to close the deficit to only three points. Emery and Lipscomb again hit threes during this run, but Lovejoy hit a three as the half wound down and the Titans took a six point lead into the locker room.
Despite the offensive rebounding by Detroit Mercy, the Vikings were within an arm’s reach of their second conference win and first road win.
A 7-0 run by Lovejoy and Nadeau to start the half pretty much sunk the Vikings. Three turnovers by CSU led to these points and it was clear the Titans didn’t want to give up the game at home.
Beard and Lipscomb cut the deficit to eight on different occasions but that was as close as the Vikings would get. A traditional three-point play by Lovejoy and a three-pointer by Fisher came directly after each of these occurrences to nullify any momentum by the Vikings.
CSU struggled a bit at the free-throw line, as the team finished 15-for-24. UDM continued to hit its threes and foul shots and finished 26-for-31.
Five straight points from Spratt got the lead over 20 points and the Vikings’ only hope was Lipscomb hitting threes. He went 6-for-6 from deep from the 4:35 mark to the 0:31 mark. In spite of this amazing display, time ran out for CSU as Lipscomb missed his last attempt with 15 seconds to go. The Titans escaped with only a 10 point win after being up by 23 with 5:12 to go, 94-84.
Key Takeaways:
- Nessah had a double-double (13 points and 10 rebounds). He is one of the only guys that can consistently get to the rim and the free throw line. He did have five turnovers, but his game seems to be coming together.
- Lipscomb erupted for 30 points, including nine threes. He also had four assists and only two turnovers. At the beginning of the season he seemed a bit discombobulated when running the offense, but the past few weeks he has shown a huge step forward.
- The Vikings got out-rebounded by a large margin again. 49-to-27 in that department makes it very difficult to win. Outside of Nessah’s 10, no one had more than three boards. Long rebounds or short rebounds, it doesn’t matter as CSU never seems to get position.
- The Titans had 18 second chance points while the Vikes only had six. This ties directly to the rebounding issues and matches up exactly with the overall point difference. The Vikings had eight offensive rebounds to match up against the 20 by the Titans.
- The Vikings are now 1-6 in conference play. They are number one in three-pointers made in conference play but are near the bottom of the league in nearly every other category. They’re seventh in points per game at 76.9 while giving up 85.4 PPG (10th). They give up almost 13 offensive rebounds per game and over 19 assists per game. Oddly enough, they have four guys averaging over 10 PPG but their defense, turnovers, and rebounding is leading to easy baskets for their opponents.
Next up for the Vikings:
CSU (5-13, 1-6 HL) comes home Thursday for a matchup against a much-improved Green Bay (10-8, 5-2 HL) before another home game against Youngstown State (9-9, 2-5 HL) on Saturday.
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