When stepping into a practice during Cleveland State’s second week of summer workouts, it’s impossible to avoid being overwhelmed by a flood of familiarity.
The waves, quite literally, crashed all around the Wolstein Center’s auxiliary gymnasium. Bob Dunn, a man in his fourth total season at CSU – though his first as the team’s head man – ran the proceedings, while two 2025-26 assistant coaches, Shelby Zoeckler and Carolyn Wochele, reprised their roles nearby. Another assistant, Mariah White, is new to the staff, but certainly not to the university, as she was a Vikings star between 2017 and 2021.
Running through drills alongside the 14 current players were the likes of Destiny Leo and Colbi Maples, recent graduates who were two of the premier talents to ever wear green and white.
“It means everything,” Dunn said of having the program greats, both of whom are looking to begin professional careers shortly, on hand for the time being. “They’re having fun and really showing our girls the atmosphere that we want. [They] just work and have a passion for basketball, and a passion for being teammates, and for them to come back is awesome. It means a lot to me that they’re here.”
The Vikings’ coaches certainly give the program a strong association from the top, while Leo and Maples help pass along a culture that made each a conference champion and a winner of the Horizon League’s Player of the Year award.
In some sense though, the core of Cleveland State’s continuity is a different group, including Sarah Hurley, Queen Ruffin, Paula Pique, and Hanna Medina Kajevic. That quartet was with the team last year, entered the transfer portal shortly after the Vikings’ season-ending WNIT loss at Arkansas State, but ultimately elected to stay put.
It’s worth pausing to consider the extraordinary rarity of that situation. WBB Blog, a popular website that, among other things, tracks transfer portal activity, lists 1,533 entrants during the current cycle. Of that number, just 32 later withdrew from the portal, and only 24 ultimately returned to their previous school as a student-athlete. Four of those 24 will play for the Vikings in 2026-27.
Furthermore, that count represents two-thirds of the number that intended to transfer in the aftermath of Chris Kielsmeier’s departure, with only Jada Leonard (Youngstown State) and Macey Fegan (Akron) slipping away to other schools.
That retention record, according to all involved, was simply a matter of priorities. Many new coaches quickly try to convince as many people as possible from their previous stop to follow along, but new video coordinator Colby Murray is the only individual in CSU’s program who worked with Dunn at Penn State last year.
Instead, the first-time head coach began by meeting with those portal entrants.
“Those first two weeks were just [about] retaining the players that we had, meeting with them, going to lunch with them, getting to know them and what their goals were, and seeing if it’d be the right fit to have them come back,” Dunn recalled.
Dunn played a role in recruiting each of them before departing for PSU in 2025, but he had not directly coached four of the six before. Those meetings, then, were vital nodes of information and communication that demonstrated how programs are built in an office, or over a sandwich, just as much as in the gym.
All of that resonated with Hurley, who said she had “a couple other options” before ultimately deciding to return.
“[Dunn] just basically said his goals for the program, and how he wanted to create the culture here, and I liked everything he said,” she remembered. “So I thought that it was the best fit for me.”
Hurley already knew Dunn well, given that he was on the Vikings’ staff during her freshman season. The others were a bit less familiar.
Pique presented an additional layer of complexity. Her sister Emma, at one point set to continue her career with the Vikings this summer, opted to join Kielsmeier at Texas State instead. That switch caused Paula to consider a similar path, but her meetings with Dunn and endorsements from teammates convinced her to stick around.
“A couple girls on the team played for him, and they told me really good things about him,” Pique said. “Then I had my meeting with him, and I really liked him as a person, his values, what he told me, the system, I liked it and I think he can make me a better player, and I’m so excited for the season.”
“I at least had established a baseline relationship with [Pique, Ruffin, and Kajevic], and really expanded on that when I got the job,” Dunn explained. “I just took the time to get to know them and see what they wanted to accomplish, and what their experience was like at Cleveland State, and if it’d be a place that they wanted to stay at. And thankfully it was.”
If all of that sounds a little mundane, well, maybe that’s point. Since his introductory press conference in April, Dunn has presented as a relationship builder. He’s the sort of coach who’s always been willing to show up to help a player get where they want to go, whether it’s extra shots for alumna Sara Guerreiro ahead of a trip to World University Games, Maples and Leo, before they head off to a to-be-determined corner of the planet with a contract in hand, or any current student-athlete trying to figure out the best place to play in the fall.
He’s also always been bullish on the potential of the university and his home city.
“I think a lot [of the retention] is just the opportunity and experience they can have here at Cleveland State,” Dunn said. “It’s a great place to go to school and get an education, and we’ve got a great support system with the administration and my fellow coaches. It’s the community in Cleveland, which they experienced in their previous time here.”
Whatever the specific reasons and motives, between five returning players – sophomore Sur Lozano never entered the portal – four coaches who have spent 17 combined seasons at Cleveland State in various capacities, and a pair of notable alumni putting in time as if they were freshmen trying to prove themselves, the present Vikings feel nothing like a mid-major program that went through a coaching change four months ago.
“It’s exciting,” Hurley said. “Now with the portal, so many teams are basically starting brand new every season. So I think it’s cool that we have such a strong culture, and such good friendships, that we all decided to come back and play together another year.”
Hurley has plenty of context for her opinion. One year ago, she, Maples, and Fegan were CSU’s only three returning players following an offseason that also saw roughly half of Kielsmeier’s coaching staff turn over, including Dunn’s brief stint in Happy Valley.
It certainly wouldn’t be ridiculous to claim that the team enjoys more cohesion now, in spite of what initially appeared to be another tumultuous spring. That much seems reflected in the team’s June workouts so far, up-tempo, high-volume affairs that reflect a rare amount of cohesion for this early stage.
“We’re having a lot of fun,” Pique observed. “Great drills, competitive [practices], and we’re so excited and ready to work hard to have a great season.”
“It’s not a rebuild,” Dunn added. “We’re building on the past and just reinforcing it. The program’s in a great spot, but because of the players and staff that we’ve had. It’s built on really good people and we want to keep those people around.”
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