On Sunday afternoon in the Wolstein Center, Cleveland State outlasted Robert Morris 68-61, behind four double-digit scorers and a halftime defensive turnaround.
Here are five things that stood out, as the Vikings improved to 15-5 overall and 5-4 in Horizon League play:
1. Exactly 47 seconds after the opening tip, the Colonials’ Bailey Kuhns committed a foul while trying to defend Izabella Zingaro.
That infraction was decidedly an omen of things to come, for both teams.
Vikings starters Zingaro and Macey Fegan played a combined 11 minutes in the first half, as each had collected two fouls by the first two minutes of the second quarter. RMU, meanwhile, had a whopping six players with a pair of whistles before the break, forcing head coach Chandler McCabe to spend an unwanted amount of time juggling through different lineups, particularly in the middle of the floor.
Surprisingly, nobody went on to foul out of the contest, thanks in part to the protection efforts of both coaches. Nevertheless, the fouls resulted in an uneven, often chaotic clash that probably didn’t follow either team’s script very closely.
“[The Colonials] play really aggressive, and if you’re sloppy with the ball and don’t play smart with how you’re playing offensively, then the game gets kind of messy,” Chris Kielsmeier said. “If you can really get them structured up, and play strong with the ball, and play to our strengths, then you’ve got chance to get to the free throw line, because of how aggressive they play.”
“They’re extremely well coached. They scheme well. It’s hard to attack them.”
To Kielsmeier’s point, Cleveland State went 16-for-20 from the free throw line in the first half, compared to just 6-for-6 for RMU – vital numbers that helped keep the Vikings in touch through a second quarter where they shot just 2-for-12 from the field.
2. Zingaro’s foul trouble meant that for the second consecutive game, Laurel Rockwood played a prominent role in delivering a victory.
On Wednesday, that meant a steadying 18:01 against Detroit Mercy, but the UC Santa Barbara transfer had even more to offer to the effort against the Colonials. In another 18:24 of playing time, Rockwood scored 14 points – equaling her career-best total against Division I competition – along with six rebounds and a blocked shot.
However, it would be a little difficult to put together a highlight reel of the fifth year’s work, given that most of her scoring came on an 8-for-10 effort from the free throw line.
Rockwood, while staring at those numbers on the game sheet, lamented “I wish I made them all,” but the ones she did make were certainly more than enough. The statistic behind those ten attempts was also significant: seven, the number of fouls she drew. That, as much as anything, helped keep Robert Morris off balance, as they rotated through Kuhns, Layke Fields, Ava Leroux, and Eva Levingston in an effort to keep their frontcourt clear of further issues.
That sort of attention has been a change for Rockwood.
“It’s definitely been a big adjustment, especially here where the ball goes through the center a lot of the time, and [Kielsmeier] really loves to use the posts and stuff, and it wasn’t like that at Santa Barbara,” she said. “So [it’s a matter of] being more comfortable on the block, with my back to the basket, and just continuing to develop every day.”
Clearly, she is doing exactly that.
“Laurel played great on both ends of the floor,” Kielsmeier offered. “She continues to learn and get better at the things that we’re asking her to do. I have so much respect for these players that have played in multiple systems, or [have] played in one system for a long time. It is hard to learn new systems. It is hard to get settled in to play in this system.”
Zingaro eventually came back on in the second half, finishing with a solid 13 points and six rebounds, despite her limited playing time, but it was Rockwood’s work that kept the Vikings treading water until then.
“I hope she had fun tonight, because she should remember tonight for the rest of her life,” Kielsmeier added. “She played huge when we needed her.”
3. CSU’s second-half defense also had as much to do with the victory as anything else.
The Vikings scored the first eight points of the afternoon, and maintained a lead that hovered between that number and 12 for most of the first quarter. Eventually, though, it proved impossible to keep up with a Robert Morris team that fired home 19 points in each of the first two periods, and took a surprising 38-36 lead into halftime.
Then, RMU only scored 23 points in the entire second half. So what changed?
That’s an easy answer for Kielsmeier: “Our defensive transition.”
The coach went on to point out that each of the Colonials’ 19 points off of turnovers came in the first half, before the Vikings were able to tighten things up later on.
“They didn’t score one point off our offense [in the second half],” Kielsmeier added. “We’ve got to get that fixed. And it’s just basic fundamentals and being sharp and strong with the ball. And if we do make a turnover, which we will, get back and get your defense set and get it set without giving up an easy shot or a foul.”
“We forced 19 turnovers tonight and yet we were minus on the turnover points. That’s not us right there. We’ve got to get that fixed.”
4. Between the foul trouble to key players, the inconsistent defense, a rough three-point shooting effort (Cleveland State was just 6-for-27 from deep), and some struggles by Colbi Maples and Jada Leonard (a combined 8-for-28 from the floor, with 18 of those shots also counting towards the three-point line), it can be sort of difficult to figure out exactly how the Vikings won.
It’s not a complete answer to the question, but those starting guards shaking off previous issues to produce monstrous second half moments was a big part of it.
A Maples three with 6:00 remaining in the third quarter reclaimed CSU’s lead for good, at 45-42. The importance of those points was magnified by the fact that neither team scored from then until a Zingaro free throw, nearly four minutes later.
Six more of the point guard’s team-high 15 tallies arrived through an and-one bucket with 1:11 remaining in that frame, followed by another triple early in the fourth period. Each play helped hold off RMU surges, as did her three second-half steals.
“[Maples] was much better defensively in that second half,” Kielsmeier said. “I’ll have to watch the tape to see it, but we certainly have been challenging her defensively because we know how much more room there is for her to play better on that end of the floor and she’d be the first one to tell you. But our defense was sharp in that second half.”
With Cleveland State ahead by just three points, 56-53, into the final five minutes of regulation, Leonard took over, beginning with a three-pointer from the right wing. After Myriam Traore – who was superb for the Colonials in defeat with 18 points and six rebounds – and Zingaro traded buckets, Leonard beat the shot clock buzzer to connect once again from deep, and from nearly the identical spot.
After that sequence, the Vikings led 64-55 with 3:26 remaining, enough to get the result over the finish line.
Leonard’s outburst was easier to credit with clinching things, but Maples’ was arguably more encouraging. Since injuring her ankle against College of Charleston on December 19th, the MBA student is shooting just 16-for-54 (29.6 percent) from the floor. Beforehand, she was 63-for-155 (40.6 percent).
“For whatever reason, Colby’s not playing that aggressive to the basket, and we’re trying to get her to settle in with that, because that’s who she is,” Kielsmeier observed. “She goes 2-for-5 inside the arc tonight, and two of the best plays were that hard straight-line attack. For whatever reason, it’s just not there yet for her, but whether it’s mental, physical, what[ever] it is, that’s her strength and hopefully she can identify that and play that way.”
5. While it’s true that the Vikings had already shaken off the hangover of their post-Christmas losing streak, with wins over Wright State and Detroit Mercy prior to Sunday’s affair, it’s also true that the team had yet to truly prove itself against the Horizon League’s upper classes.
The standings have been divided into clear tiers for most of the season. First off is 10-0 Green Bay, further removed from anyone else than Kielsmeier’s rural Iowa hometown. After the Phoenix, CSU, Purdue Fort Wayne, Youngstown State, Northern Kentucky, and Robert Morris represent the pack most likely to secure the other four second-round home contests in the HL tournament (and, in theory, catch the Phoenix in the event of an unlikely collapse).
Cleveland State defeated the Norse back on December 16th, but that was before Jeff Hans’ squad announced its intent to compete near the top of the league with an active seven-game winning streak that launched on December 29th. The RMU win was the first time the Vikings beat a top-half opponent, while the foe was known to hold that status.
“When you play these games, it’s obviously about winning and helping move yourself up, but when you beat teams that are right in the mix with you, then you give them a loss and push them down,” Kielsmeier said. “So it’s twofold.”
Sunday’s moving and pushing drew CSU into a fourth-place tie with the Colonials and PFW, with the trio sitting within close reach of second-place NKU. And, as luck would have it, the Vikings’ next two matchups are on the road against the Mastodons and third-place YSU.
“There’s not a game that we play the rest of the year that’s not huge,” Kielsmeier added. “Every game has a lot at stake and you got to embrace that.”
“But if we can just play more consistent, you’re going to see a whole ‘nother gear to this team. We’ve got a whole ‘nother level that we can go to. And like I said, we’re going to keep working at it. Now I’m going to dream about it tonight, probably.”
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