The Vikings played two good halves of basketball this week. It was unfortunate that they were in separate losses. Cleveland State (10-19, 6-12 in the Horizon League at the start of the week) lost two games and now must play an extra play-in game as the 10-seed in the conference.
The week started off at the Wolstein Center against a Northern Kentucky (17-12, 9-9 HL) team who has been trying to figure themselves out all year. With no Dayan Nessah again and Foster Wonders out sick, the Vikings were short-staffed. Head coach Rob Summers started Tre Beard, Jaidon Lipscomb, Josiah Harris, Kamari Jones, and Holden Pierre-Louis.
By the end, only six Vikings would play more than ten minutes in the game (Pierre-Louis played nine). Despite this small rotation, it was the start of the game, not the end, where they had no energy or scoring.
First off, the Norse jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead heading into the first media timeout as CSU was unable to capitalize on anything. A Beard three almost five minutes into the contest was their first points and would turn out to be their only field goal for quite a while.
Preist Ryan sank two free throws around the 12:30 mark, but these five points were all the Vikings could conjure up for the first 11 minutes and 30 seconds of the game. Two more free throws by Chavalier Emery came at that point, but they still hadn’t made another shot and had made zero two-pointers.
The dam finally broke after almost 13 minutes as the Vikings scored on four out of five possessions and climbed back into the game.
Somehow, the Viking defense had kept them relatively close for a team that didn’t score at all. After a four-point play by Beard, CSU was only down 12 with about five minutes to play in the half.
Harris hit a three to cut this to 11, but a run at the end of the half by the Norse grew the deficit to 18. Six straight points out of halftime by the Norse had the Vikings on the ropes.
The teams went back-and-forth with baskets for five minutes and the Vikings were unable to gain any ground. Any time they made a basket, NKU either got right to the hoop or had an open corner three.
Threes by Kael Robinson, Tae Dozier, and others were raining from everywhere as the Vikings tried their best to stay in the game. A small break in the action due to a disagreement led to dual technical fouls on Ryan and Donovan Oday but the rest of the game was relatively uneventful.
On a day when Cleveland-based attorney Tim Misny was in attendance for his bobblehead night, the Vikings did not “make them pay.”
The Norse lead hovered around 17 points for most of the second half until the Vikings started to press and play great defense down the stretch. They got a few consecutive stops and points on a slew of free throws, but they just didn’t have enough time to fight back.
The game ended on a Manny Hill layup to cut the game down to eleven points. The Norse won 81-70.
Key Takeaways:
- Ryan was an absolute beast. He finished with 20 points and 10 boards before he fouled out. His energy was infectious and helped break them out of their offensive funk. “We just really focused on putting Preist in some short roll stuff [and] really focusing on trying to get the ball downhill and playing inside-out,” Summers noted.
- The Vikings actually won a paint battle. They scored 38 points to the Norse’s 32. They got out-rebounded towards the end, but in all it wasn’t a horrible day inside.
- The Vikings turned the ball over numerous times during their cold stretch in the beginning of the game but finished with only 12 total giveaways. This cleaning up as the game went on was a large reason why they won the second half by seven points.
- LJ Wells feasted on the Vikings for 24 points and 12 rebounds. He has been a great player for years, but this game showed how he can affect everything on the court. “He’s given a lot of guys problems, but he’s all-conference,” Summers mentioned. “He’s somebody who fits in the Horizon League and he fits [NKU head coach Darrin] Horn. You know that he’ll be a good player as he gets to a professional career too.”
- The full-court press at the end of the game looked great yet again. With so many guys on the team that can score, it brings up a question of should they run that more often and just play more guys to stay fresh à la IU-Indy?
The Vikings finished up the regular season in Moon Township against Robert Morris (20-10, 12-7 HL) on Saturday afternoon. This game was essentially meaningless for CSU as they had secured their spot as the 10-seed in the conference, so everyone got to play.
Still without Nessah, the same five started for Summers as in the NKU game. In all, 13 guys would see the floor for the Vikings and 12 would score.
Just like the NKU game, the Vikings were down early by six (9-3) as a Lipscomb three was all they could muster. Ryan and Emery helped boost the score a bit and jump-started a 14-0 run by the Vikings to take a 19-12 and then 22-14 lead at the halfway point of the first half.
Everyone was helping CSU, with Ivan Spirov, Kamari Jones and others getting points. Ryan Prather Jr. sank a three to cut the lead to five but a few free throws and a Hill three pushed the Vikings up by 11.
Against the best rebounding team in the league, the Vikings were holding their own and scoring at a high rate. From that point on (29-18 with 7:22 left), the Vikings would go a bit cold and score only 10 more points in the half.
The Colonials went on a 12-1 run to tie the score at 30, but the Vikings weren’t entirely dismayed as back-to-back threes by Wonders and Emery put them up by five again. A few minutes later a 5-0 run by RMU had the game tied at half, which was impressive enough against a tough squad.
The second half started off well for the Vikings as they took back the lead a few times with a three by Beard and two baskets by Hill. Freshman Kevo St. Hilaire even added to the fun and pushed the lead back to four points with 16:01 left in the contest. Beard hit yet another three with 14:15 to go, and then things turned sour with the Vikings up 54-50.
The last 14:15 saw the Vikings score only 10 points and completely fall apart on the boards. Lucas Burton laid one in with 11:51 left and then CSU didn’t score again until the 5:43 mark. They then scored eight points in a span of 2:08 and then didn’t score for the last 3:35 of the game.
On the flip side, the Colonials scored 33 points in the last 14:15 and clobbered the Vikings 83-64. A game that was well within reach for CSU turned into their seventh straight loss.
Key Takeaways:
- The Vikings played the Colonials fairly even on the boards for the beginning of the game, but by the end lost that battle 37-to-28.
- CSU only took eight foul shots (and made only four). RMU took 17 (and made 12). When the amount of foul shots taken needs to be written out due to AP style…yikes.
- Only one of the 13 Vikings who played scored in double figures. Emery finished with 11 points. They had all-around scoring but they truly missed their number one option in Nessah.
- Four Colonials finished in double figures and they look like a team ready to repeat as Horizon League Tournament champions. Nikolaos Chitikoudis also had 10 rebounds. He’s a force to be reckoned with.
- The scoring droughts for CSU are befuddling. Basically every guy on the team can score–it’s a mystery why they just can’t seem to put the ball in the basket sometimes.
10-seed CSU (10-21, 6-14 HL) now will host 11-seed IU-Indy (7-24, 3-17 HL) on Monday for a chance to travel to 1-seed Wright State on Wednesday.
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