CSU Courtside (January 28th)

High Praise

It’s no secret to observers that Cleveland State’s trademark zone defense has been remarkably inconsistent. While Jada Leonard has been among the conference and national leaders for steals through most of the season, the Vikings’ forced turnover numbers have trended south when facing familiar opponents during the conference schedule.

CSU’s shot suppression has generally been a strong point, though it’s still had rough moments, like last Wednesday, when Purdue Fort Wayne buried 11 of its 28 three-point attempts.

“The zone this year has been just the strangest thing,” Chris Kielsmeier said on his weekly radio show. “Some nights it’s as good of a rotation, and pressure, and aggressiveness as any team I’ve coached at Cleveland State. And then just other nights, we just don’t have that same intensity, that same pressure, rotation, quickness, and it just leaves a lot of people open.”

That’s a fair, and expected, assessment, though Kielsmeier then went on to say something a little surprising.

“In Fort Wayne’s case, especially with [Alana] Nelson, she’s as good as anybody in the league,” he added. “We made some mistakes with her, and she got some good looks, and players like that are going to hit those shots.”

Kielsmeier usually adheres to a pretty common philosophy among coaches: don’t talk about opponents publicly, except in very broad terms, to avoid even the possibility of someone interpreting a comment as adversarial (he learned about that outcome the hard way after a game against PFW last year, of course).

If he does need to mention specific players, he’ll typically refer to them by number, not by name. So, in that context, Kielsmeier going out of his way to single out the Mastodons forward feels notable.

Nelson scored 23 points on 9-for-12 shooting against CSU last week, and averages 16.4 points per game this year. She will almost certainly receive all-league recognition next month, and possibly even the Horizon League’s Player of the Year award.

In fact, she just might have Kielsmeier’s vote for that latter honor.

Snow Day

Given Winter Storm Fern and its related inconveniences before and after Sunday’s game at Youngstown State, director of basketball operations Hanna Zerr would have been a fascinating interview. However, Zerr was on the radio show only two weeks ago, so assistant coach Jenna Bolstad’s secondhand account of those preparations had to suffice.

“I feel bad for our director of ops, Hanna,” Bolstad began. “I think she planned our trip to Youngstown about five or six different times, with buses or vans, and planning of everything. I don’t envy any of what she has to do, but I appreciate all she does, because that’s all the work behind the scenes.”

As it turned out, 12 to 15 inches of snow battered the Mahoning Valley over what was roughly an 18-hour period, between the night leading into Sunday and that evening. YSU urged fans to stay off the roads and watch the game at home, but the visiting team had no such luxury.

Bolstad mentioned that it could have been even worse, though.

“Back home [in Montana], they had negative-60 with the windchill the other morning,” she said.

End-to-End

While answering a question about post depth, Bolstad pointed out something obvious, yet easy to forget. Specifically, she cited the idea that post players are larger than guards, and actually have to run a bit further when going up and down the court.

“The depth helps us when we want to get up and run, we can sub in another, after another, so we can continue to run,” she said. “Because a five player, that’s a lot on them to run. You run [legitimately] 94 feet, whereas guards are maybe running three-point line to three-point line, and that’s 20 feet shorter.”

Sweet Carolyn

Cleveland State graduate assistant Carolyn Wochele, who serves as the team’s video coordinator, is a product of one of the true hidden gems in the area, Baldwin Wallace women’s basketball.

Between 2020 and 2024, Wochele helped the Division III powerhouse to three conference titles and three NCAA Tournament appearances, including a couple of trips to the Sweet 16. Those successes are just a sampling of the 35-year run that legendary coach Cheri Harrer has enjoyed in Berea, where she’s stockpiled enough victories to rank among the top 50 mentors of all time, at any level.

“I had probably the best four years of my life there,” the former Yellow Jackets captain said. “I was fortunate to have a very successful career, met some of my best friends, and had some of the best coaches I could have asked for in the world, and I think they molded me to be in the position I am now.”

“Being around people like that really inspired me to kind of want to coach, and continue on the avenue with basketball.”

After graduating, Wochele was a part of the WBCA’s well-regarded “So You Want to Be a Coach” program, which she credits with helping her land a graduate assistantship at Walsh University. She spent the 2024-25 season with the Division II school in Canton before joining the Vikings’ staff.

“She’s just a basketball junkie,” Kielsmeier said. “She loves the game. She’s all in with coaching. You love to hire [graduate assistants] that feel that way, because then their passion and drive to get better and learn is really not coming from really anybody other than themselves.”

“Coach K and the staff this year have been incredible,” Wochele said, returning the compliment. “And I think I’ve really found myself, I have my specific duties that I really like to focus on and do my best at, but I’m still finding a way to integrate myself with the other coaches. If there’s something I can help out with a scout or with on-court workouts, anything that I can do to just help out in different ways and not only grow my skillset, but just help the program however I can.”

Just Win Baby

The Vikings are now just 5-6 in Horizon League play following those losses to Purdue Fort Wayne and Youngstown State over the last week (not to mention earlier upset defeats against Detroit Mercy and Milwaukee, teams that are now a combined 3-16 in the conference, when not playing CSU).

That record, this late in the season, can naturally lead to some uncomfortable conversations concerning Cleveland State’s eventual HL tournament seeding, the related ideas of hosting in the second round and making it back to Indianapolis for the third round, and the Vikings’ postseason fate beyond that.

“We are not where we want or expect to be in the standings,” Kielsmeier admitted. “But we’ve created this situation for ourselves, and the only way to get out of it is go win games. That’s what you’ve got to do this time of year. And historically, that’s what this program has done. So I think that it’s coming. I just hope it comes sooner rather than later.”