Inside Northern Kentucky’s Truist Arena on Saturday, Cleveland State used strong second and fourth quarters to squeeze out a 69-61 victory over the Norse, and improve to 17-7 (7-6 Horizon League).
Here are five things that stood out from an encouraging afternoon for the green and white:
1. All things considered, was it CSU’s biggest win of the season?
“No doubt, no doubt,” Chris Kielsmeier answered, before the question was even finished.
The outcome accomplished a number of things. For one, it served as a correction of Cleveland State’s often-brutal road performances this year. The Vikings carried a 2-6 away mark entering the game, including upset defeats to Detroit Mercy and Milwaukee teams that live near the bottom of the Horizon League.
More importantly though, it completely reset the team’s ability to compete for a finish in the conference standings’ top five, the positions that earn a first-round home game in the HL tournament.
“When you lose some of the games that we have throughout the course of the year, and put ourselves in a position in the standings where we were at, you’re running out of time to move up,” Kielsmeier said. “When you’re behind these teams, it’s not like you can just magically move up.”
However, after Saturday’s result, Cleveland State and Northern Kentucky are now tied for fifth place with matching 7-6 conference marks. The Vikings, though, own the tiebreaker over NKU, thanks to sweeping the season series.
Fourth-place Robert Morris (7-5) and third-place Purdue Fort Wayne (8-4) are the next two teams up the table, and CSU has a contest against each over the next two weeks.
“We’re fortunately in a position where it’s still a good spot for us, where we don’t have to scoreboard watch or worry about what anybody else does,” Kielsmeier added. “We’ve got to go play clean good basketball and win games, and everything we want will take care of itself.”
2. It might be fair to call Izabella Zingaro’s effort her best, not only at Cleveland State, but over the course of her entire five-season collegiate run.
The center’s (or “centre’s,” in her native Canadian) 25 points equaled her previous career high, first established last season at Montana. Zingaro’s 15 rebounds set a new personal best.
Eleven of those 25 tallies came during the fourth quarter, when the Vikings had to fight off the malaise of coughing up a 15-point halftime lead over less than seven minutes of the third quarter. Rather abruptly, the visitors went from a state of comfort to facing a three-point deficit early in that final frame, thanks to a bucket by Mya Meredith. Meredith led the Norse with 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting, and keyed NKU’s rally.
“Mya got a couple steals and a couple and-ones in that third quarter that really led to us scoring 26 points,” Norse coach Jeff Hans said. “We were forcing them to do some things that they weren’t comfortable doing.”
Zingaro, though, tied the game at 55-55 shortly after Meredith’s score with a three-pointer, the initial third of an eventual nine consecutive points from the one-time Iowa State Cyclone. Before Meredith got Northern Kentucky back on the board, CSU led 61-55, and was able to dictate the last four minutes of regulation.
“They just kept making plays in the fourth quarter,” Hans added.
That triple that launched the one-woman run was Zingaro’s third bomb of the season. The first clinched a victory over College of Charleston in Puerto Rico last month, the Vikings’ consensus “biggest win” before beating NKU, and the other gave CSU a chance late in a close game at league-leading Green Bay.
It’s safe to say that if Zingaro hits a three-ball, Cleveland State is probably in pretty good shape.
Regardless, as impressive as all of that was, her defense might have been even better.
“They kept going inside at her, so she didn’t get to rest,” Kielsmeier confirmed. “It wasn’t just what she was doing offensively, she had to defend and she had to rebound.”
The Norse offer a bevy of notable frontcourt threats, led by star freshman Maddie Moody and veteran Abby Wolterman. Off the bench, Jamaya Thomas and Mia Jordan offer more-than-credible support.
That quartet combined for 14 points on 4-for-15 shooting. Moody and Jordan ended the game with four fouls, while Thomas was tagged for three.
“I don’t think people probably understand, for Izzi to play 35 minutes with the physicality that she’s got to play with offensively, to be able to get positioned and get those shots is a lot in itself,” Kielsmeier explained.
“But then to get up and down the floor and then to have…for her, she’s on a defensive island. When that ball gets thrown into that block or that high post, everybody knows we’re going to match to it, and we’ve got to guard it one-on-one, and she’s a heck of a defender. And she showed that tonight.”
3. For the second consecutive outing, Colbi Maples was electric. The MBA student equaled Zingaro’s game-high 25 points, and got there with an unpredictable toolbox that included drives to the basket, three-pointers (she was 3-for-6 from deep), and free throws (4-for-4).
The 2023-24 Horizon League Player of the Year seems to be fully back on her game, after injuries and slumps limited her for a lot of the season.
“The game’s up and down,” Kielsmeier said. “We all know what she’s capable of, and you’ve got to work through things to get yourself where you want to be, and that’s not a basketball thing. Give her credit. She worked through it.”
Maples’ sudden eruption almost feels like a trade deadline acquisition for Cleveland State. She can certainly help the Vikings’ offense perform at its three-dimensional best, instead of being overly-reliant on Zingaro, and (to an extent) the three-point shooting of Sarah Hurley and Ella Van Weelden.
4. The Vikings opened the game by out-thinking themselves a bit, using a man-to-man defense instead of their usual zone, an attempt to throw Northern Kentucky off balance.
Superficially, it was a decent idea. After all, the last time Cleveland State played at Truist Arena, late in the 2024-25 season, the Norse went 16-for-31 from three-point range, eventually rallying in the fourth quarter to upset the Vikings.
However, facing that man defense on Saturday, NKU’s Taysha Rushton hit three early three-pointers, on the way to an eventual 16 points, leading Kielsmeier to sarcastically call his gambit “great coaching.”
Once in their more familiar scheme, though, Cleveland State locked down the perimeter.
NKU finished the game just 5-for-27 (18.5 percent) from three-point range, with Rushton ending up 4-for-12 after her hot start. Meanwhile, Karina Bystry – who set a school freshman record with 35 points a week ago against Purdue Fort Wayne – was limited to just 1-for-10 from deep and 5-for-22 overall.
“Karina struggles today, Taysha struggled from the three a little bit…they’re getting good looks, we’ve gotta get downhill and finish,” Hans said.
“We’ve gotta do a better job in our own arena of playing better.”
The closest thing the game had to a closeout play involved that perimeter defense. With the Vikings ahead 65-59 in the last 30 seconds of the fourth quarter, Jada Leonard got her hand on a Rushton pass for a steal. Rushton was forced to foul the Bryant transfer, and Leonard’s free throws gave the Vikings an eight-point lead.
“We defended them, and our rotation getting down that three-point line was better. I’m sure they would say they missed some open shots that they normally hit, but that’s the game,” Kielsmeier said, agreeing with his counterpart. “We missed a bunch of wide-open shots ourselves, and if we can start to hit some of those with some level of consistency, then we will be a lot better too.”
The coach is right, as the Vikings weren’t much better than Northern Kentucky from deep, with a 6-for-26 (23.1 percent) line, which turns into 2-for-17 (11.8 percent) effort beyond Maples and Zingaro. They still managed to win the day by being much more efficient while inside the arc.
5. Kielsmeier has spoken frequently about his belief that Cleveland State’s ceiling is much higher than what the Vikings have generally shown so far this year.
It would be hard to top Saturday’s second quarter in that regard. CSU outscored the Norse 21-7 in the frame to head into halftime with their ill-fated 40-25 lead. Maples and Zingaro were each at their dynamic best, while Paula Pique chipped in a three-pointer, helping the Vikings to shoot 7-for-11 (63.6 percent) during the period. On the other end of the floor, NKU was held to just 3-for-16 (18.8 percent).
That production included a 12-0 run spanning the tail-end of the first quarter, and the opening three-plus minutes of the subsequent period.
Was that the team’s ceiling, or at least something approaching it?
Kielsmeier thought the team’s high points expanded beyond that frame, while also remaining frustrated with the Vikings’ inconsistency.
“Well, I think first, second, and fourth [quarters], really,” he said. “I mean if you look at those three quarters, the first quarter they hit some shots. [Rushton] came out and hit those three threes. So we played really well for three quarters, and unfortunately, the third quarter didn’t go the way we wanted it to. And that’s been a story of a lot of what we’ve done this year, and we’ve just got to get that fixed.”
The chase for perfection continues on Wednesday night in Indianapolis, against a resurgent IU Indy squad.
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