On Wednesday night, Cleveland State fell to 7-7 in Horizon League play with a discouraging and damaging 78-70 loss at IU Indianapolis.
Here are five things that stood out, as the Vikings dropped to 17-8 overall:
1. The contest was, presumptively, CSU’s final visit to The Jungle, as construction on IU Indy’s future home, James T. Morris Arena, is scheduled to wrap up late this year. If it was indeed the Vikings’ last time in the shoebox gym tucked in one corner of a building best known for its sprawling natatorium, it was an appropriate bookend, in some sense.
IU Indianapolis – then known as IUPUI, of course – joined the Horizon League in 2017 at a seminal moment for the school’s women’s basketball program. That same year, eventual four-time HL Player of the Year Macee Williams showed up on campus and accelerated the Jaguars’ ascension under then-coach Austin Parkinson, culminating in the 2020 and 2022 conference titles.
Around that time, Cleveland State was an operation in transition, as Chris Kielsmeier took over for Kate Peterson Abiad in 2018 and began rebuilding the Vikings. They quickly became competitive, but spent a few years having their status as a member of the Horizon League’s second class reinforced with a string of one-sided defeats to an Indianapolis squad that was much closer to a finished product. CSU’s first six visits to The Jungle for conference games involved 38, 28, 10, 34, 20, and 18-point setbacks.
After both Williams and Parkinson departed, CSU finally broke through in 2022-23 and launched a six-game winning streak against the Jags, with most of those outcomes (including a 61-39 victory in The Jungle last season) qualifying as blowouts in the opposite direction.
If IU Indianapolis is indeed a bellwether for the state of the Vikings program, it’s probably fair to ask about the broader significance of Cleveland State’s first loss to the Jaguars since the 2022 HL championship game. After three years as one of the HL’s definitive co-favorites, have things shifted for CSU once again?
“What have the results with this team been?” an exasperated Kielsmeier rhetorically asked, before answering his own question. “Very inconsistent. That’s who we are. We’re a 7-7 Horizon League basketball team, because at times we’ve played as good as anybody in this league, and other times we’ve played as poor as anybody in this league.”
“We consistently get outplayed, and that’s never happened in this program at this level.”
It took a lot more than losing to IU Indianapolis to produce that statement, but the most recent data certainly underscores a new and uncomfortable status for the Vikings.
2. So what happened, exactly?
IU Indy deployed a fast, aggressive, attacking offense that consistently turned the screws on CSU’s defense, and presented plenty of downhill looks for twins Hailey and Olivia Smith (14 and 11 points, respectively), as well as Destini Craig (19).
“Offensively, they really cram it down on you,” Kielsmeier said. “How many times did we give up a shot in transition after a made basket? That should never happen in a basketball game, ever. And we just do some of the same consistent plays that are going to get you beat.”
On the occasions when Cleveland State was able to cut off the Jaguars’ runs to the bucket, Nevaeh Foster’s hot-shooting night offered a lethal dose of balance. Foster knocked down six three-pointers in ten attempts on the way to a team-best 22 points.
After a slow start, IU Indy shot 54.3 percent from the floor over the final three quarters. That’s always going to be a tough number to beat.
3. There are 16 statistical categories next to each participating player’s name on a standard gamesheet, and about 20 more that tally things up on a team-wide basis.
However, there are only two that Kielsmeier instantly commits to memory and can always recite without hedging his words a bit. And he made it clear that he felt Wednesday’s matchup depended on them.
“Turnovers forced were 18 to 16 [in IU Indy’s favor],” Kielsmeier began. “We forced a lot of turnovers. They forced a lot of turnovers. We kept it close, but they were [ahead] 20 to 11 on points off of turnovers. And that’s going to get you beat.”
A nine-point differential in a category within a game decided by eight points makes the coach objectively correct, but it’s worth considering one of the underlying drivers of those numbers.
The Jaguars’ ball pressure presented a consistent issue all evening long. Eighteen turnovers is still a somewhat-manageable number, but the overwhelming majority of those Vikings giveaways were in live-ball situations, as IU Indy racked up 13 steals. That, of course, allowed the hosts to get out in transition, presenting a much more dangerous scoring threat than a dead-ball turnover, like a traveling violation.
4. The loss overshadowed another huge outing by Izabella Zingaro, who paced the Vikings with 24 points, on 10-for-15 shooting, alongside 11 rebounds.
Until it became clear that Cleveland State couldn’t do much to slow down the Jaguars’ offense, it almost seemed as if the result might come down to a fascinating game within the game. IU Indianapolis coach Kate Bruce tried a little bit of everything to deny Zingaro the ball, generally by rotating Craig, Ariana Williams, and Julia Hall. Williams’ length probably presented CSU with the most issues, though all three enjoyed successful moments.
Regardless, the Vikings probably won that battle, all things considered, thanks to the efforts of Macey Fegan, Jada Leonard, and Colbi Maples – the trio combined for 12 assists, mostly after feeding Zingaro – to get the ball into the paint. At times, the green and white also flashed a successful inside-out game as a secondary option, including Sarah Hurley’s 3-for-6 effort from three-point range.
Maples and Leonard both had plenty of rough moments with the Jaguars’ pressure, which probably reflected a bit in their shooting numbers, a combined 7-for-24, as well. But ultimately, Kielsmeier didn’t lay a ton of blame on his team’s offense.
“You score 70 points in the Horizon League, you should win every night,” he lamented. “And how many times have we done it when we haven’t?”
The answer to that question is actually just two: Wednesday’s result, and an 80-70 setback at Purdue Fort Wayne on January 21st. However, the Vikings also gave up 76 points to Detroit Mercy in this season’s conference opener, and 70 to Youngstown State on December 29th, losses where CSU didn’t reach 70 points. Wright State scored 75 in a Cleveland State victory on January 7th.
For a program that prides itself on defense, that’s a pretty alarming reality.
5. The disappointment was the Vikings’ third this year against an opponent in the bottom half of the conference standings.
To be clear, IU Indianapolis is a quality team that has also beaten Youngstown State and Northern Kentucky within its last five games. They even, like CSU, had a near-miss loss at Northwestern early in the season. In terms of sheer optics, dropping a contest to the Jaguars isn’t a disaster on the scale of previous defeats against UDM or Milwaukee, outcomes that still represent one-third of the Titans’ and Panthers’ combined six HL wins.
As much as anything else, the truly maddening thing about the evening was the fact that, for all of Cleveland State’s ups and downs this year, it seemed as if the Vikings had recently turned a corner.
After being battered on the road by Purdue Fort Wayne and Youngstown State, CSU returned to the Wolstein Center and logged a solid revenge win over Milwaukee last Wednesday. On Saturday, the Vikings headed down to Northern Kentucky and picked up what Kielsmeier fairly considered his team’s biggest victory of the season.
Now, much of that progress feels wiped out. In fact, Kielsmeier’s most direct comparison for the loss was that conference-opening stunner at Detroit Mercy, back on December 4th.
“It cuts me deep because it’s my job to fix those things,” he said. “But what was different from tonight than [in] Detroit? A lot of similarities and I haven’t been able to change it.”
In other words, for Kielsmeier, what some might see as a roller coaster is more of a flat line connecting points two months apart.
Regardless, as the coach said, Cleveland State is the perfect encapsulation of a .500 team at this stage.
That sort of inconsistency can be waved off with a “we need more continuity” in December, but in February, it means that the Vikings are quickly running out of time to transform their 2025-26 narrative into something else.
Only six contests remain in the regular season, and with CSU now three games behind the likes of YSU and PFW in the loss column (not to mention Green Bay, now a mathematical certainty to finish ahead of Cleveland State), it’s beginning to appear as if fourth place might be the team’s ceiling. There is plenty to be resolved in the next three weeks, but most realistic projections present more bracket adversity than the Vikings usually experience in the Horizon League tournament.
Successes like going to Indianapolis for the HL’s final two rounds, and participation in a postseason tournament beyond that, have been assumed for the last six seasons. Both runs are now in peril, with only one clear route back to safety.
Can CSU find that path before it’s too late?
“It’s just…I don’t know, I’m at a loss, why I can’t get it fixed,” a resigned Kielsmeier admitted.
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