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Ryan Aroney

Jeremy MontgomeryCleveland State enters Horizon League play on Saturday at 12-2 overall, including 2-0 in league play after sweeping the first set of Horizon League games in early December.

The Vikings picked up solid wins in the non-conference portion of the schedule including a top-50 RPI win at Vanderbilt and top-100 wins at Kent State and at Robert Morris and home vs. St. Bonaventure. The Vikings also knocked off MAC contender Akron and rounded out the non-conference slate on Wednesday with a win at Toledo to improve to 3-0 against the MAC this season.

On the other hand, the two losses were not-so-good as they came to 6-7 Hofstra in a neutral site game and on the road to 7-7 South Florida.

With the focus now fully on the Horizon League (save the annual ESPN Bracketbuster game in February), the Vikings are in good shape to make a run towards a conference championship thanks to their tough defense and their 2-0 head start on the rest of the league (only Milwaukee remains unbeaten in conference play).

Even with a stingy defense that has propelled CSU to its fast start, the Vikings will need improvement on offense and the continued development of its talented freshman class in order to go dancing in March.

Here are my keys for a Horizon League Championship:

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Tom Mieskoski

J-Mo_3

Saturday was Jeremy Montgomery's day to play the hero.

The senior guard from Chicago swished a three-pointer from the top of the key with 21.2 seconds left to give Cleveland State a 69-66 victory over Akron at the Wolstein Center.

"I heard the crowd screaming that the shot clock was going down. So I had to step up and knock down a shot for my team," said Montgomery, who was 1-for-11 from the field and 0-for-7 from three-point distance before the game-winner. "You have to stay positive and keep shooting. That's a shooter's attitude."

"Jeremy and Trey (Harmon) have the same mentality, it doesn't matter if they miss 15 in a roll, they think they will make number 16," said CSU head coach Gary Waters.

On CSU's final shot, Waters said he wanted to get the ball to either Montgomery or to Aaron Pogue inside.

"I don't think Jeremy was looking to throw it inside to Aaron," said Waters. "In his mind, he was thinking it was his turn (to be the hero). When a guy feels that confident I don't mind if he shoots it."

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Tom Mieskoski

Cleveland_State_logoCleveland State concludes its seven game road trip tonight when the Vikings travel to Moon Township, Pa. to take on Robert Morris of the Northeast Conference.

The Colonials (7-2) are off to their best start in school history and have won three straight after knocking off host-Duquesne 64-60 on Tuesday. They are 3-0 at home.

"(Robert Morris) maybe the best team we have played so far," CSU head coach Gary Waters said at Tuesday's media gathering. "They remind me of one of my old teams that I had at Kent State. They're tough and gritty and you don't know their names very well, but they take care of business."

Waters also said that the Colonials are a senior-laden team that has NCAA tournament experience (2009, 2010).

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Tom Mieskoski

Cleveland_State_logoCleveland State head coach Gary Waters said he's not a fan of playing conference games so early in the season.

"What happens is you stop what your doing and then you put total concentration on (these two league games)," Waters said at Tuesday's media gathering. "It's not an easy thing to do, but everybody does it so you have to live through it."

According to Waters, the Horizon League plays these early conference games because ESPN sets the dates when the conference tournaments begin (ESPN owns the broadcasting rights of most conference tournaments), and BracketBusters weekend also takes away a week of games.

The Vikings (6-1) are off to the second best start in school history after taking two-of-three last weekend to win the TicketCity Legends Classic subregional round at Kingston, Rhode Island.

They open Horizon play this week with two very important road games at Wright State (2-4) tonight and Detroit (3-4) on Saturday.

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Tom Mieskoski

Trevon_Harmon

Trevon Harmon said he has hit a couple of game-winning shots in high school, but has never hit one at the collegiate level until Friday night.

The Pasadena, Calif. native sank a three-pointer with 2.8 seconds left to give Cleveland State a 67-64 victory over St. Bonaventure at the Wolstein Center.

"First off, I would like to thank god for the shot," said Harmon, who led the Vikings with 20 points on 7-of-12 from the field, including 4-of-7 from 3-point distance. "It was designed for me to come up top towards the end and Aaron (Pogue) set a good screen for me and I was wide open."

On the final decisive play, CSU head coach Gary Waters designed a play to run the clock down to eight seconds. Then Harmon was to come off a down screen and get the ball at the top of the key.

Once Harmon had the ball he had two options: If he was open he was supposed to take the shot and if he was guarded he was supposed to drop it inside to Aaron Pogue.

"They did a great job of executing it," said Waters.

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