The Cleveland State Vikings are going to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years! 

Wait, you thought they lost in the Horizon League Tournament?  Well, sure, the Men’s team did.  But the Women’s team blew past top seed Wisconsin-Green Bay and higher-seeded Butler to capture another Tournament title, and were rewarded with a trip to South Bend, Indiana to face a Notre Dame team that has lost only 5 games this season … and 3 of them were to Connecticut, which consists entirely of Norse gods, changelings, and cyborgs from the future. 

Some reward. 

I got the opportunity to talk with Coach Kate Peterson Abiad, now in her 7^th season as head coach of the Vikings.  However, because my interviewing skills have not improved significantly from last year, Coach Peterson Abiad’s quotes will be liberally paraphrased, unless someone can explain why I wrote “Klun noor WI bonder” in my notes. 

Peterson Abiad came to Cleveland State in 2003 after spending years as an assistant coach at various locations.  I will point you to the excellent CSU Web Page bio for the details.  Although her philosophies did not immediately bear fruit, by which I mean “went 4-25 in her third season,” the Vikings have now won the Horizon League Tournament two of the last three years and made the semis in each year.  I sat down with Peterson Abiad, which actually means I talked with her on my cell phone while smoking in the parking garage.  The thousand-mile distance between us is at least partially responsible for her talking with Terry Pluto yesterday instead of calling me, the other part being … dude … he’s Terry Pluto, and I’m a guy smoking in a parking garage.

Read more...

Cleveland State saw its season come to an end Friday night in Indianapolis with an 82-75 loss to the Milwaukee Panthers in the second round of the Horizon League Tournament.

The short-handed Vikings played without Horizon League all-Defensive team member D’Aundray Brown, who missed the game after having surgery to repair a detached retina suffered in Tuesday’s first round victory over Loyola. CSU was also limited with center Aaron Pogue playing with a splint on his broken left thumb and normal starting shooting guard Trey Harmon playing limited minutes off the bench a week after returning from a concussion.

The new-look lineup featured redshirt freshman Tim Kamczyc making his fifth consecutive start in place of Harmon, redshirt freshman Charlie Woods making his first career start in place of Brown and little used Joe Latas and Lance James playing big minutes off the bench. James, a junior college transfer, played in only 11 games this season and was making just his fourth appearance after missing 21 games with a broken foot.

To put it mildly, Gary Waters and the Vikings were grasping at straws trying to find a lineup that would recapture last year’s magic, but as was expected, the new and inexperienced lineup struggled early against Milwaukee.

The fourth-seeded Panthers feature a lot of size and with Brown, an undersized power forward and defensive specialist, out of the game, the Vikings struggled to match up and compete down low with the big bodies from Milwaukee.

Read more...

Cleveland State wraps up the regular season this week with two home games against Detroit and Wright State. The Vikings (14-15, 9-7) lost two conference games last week to fall to fifth place in the Horizon League and must win one of the final two games to secure a home game in the first round of the Horizon League Tournament on March 2nd.

CSU can climb as high as third if it wins both games this week. Although the chance at the double-bye that comes with the top two seeds vanished with last week’s losses, the third seed is still important as it avoids a potential meeting with undefeated Butler until the championship round. The three seed also has an outside shot at hosting the championship if it advances to the championship and Butler gets knocked off in the semi-finals.

The Vikings are familiar with making a post season run as the Horizon League’s third place team. Just last season the Vikings won four games in a week as the third seed to win the Horizon League and clinch the automatic birth in the NCAA tournament.

 The Vikings will have to tweak the starting lineup down the stretch as starting guard Trey Harmon missed Saturday’s non-conference victory over Toledo with a concussion and is doubtful for this week’s games. Harmon is third on the team with 11.0 points per game.

 Detroit (16-13, 7-9) Thursday 7:30 p.m.

After a hot start, Detroit has lost five straight league games and seven of its last 11 overall.

Read more...

Cleveland State takes the road this week looking to continue a three game winning streak. The road-trip is a short one as the Vikings play two games in Chicago before returning home next week for big matchups with Valparaiso and Butler. 

The Vikings (10-12, 6-4) are now a half game out of second place in the Horizon League, although CSU is tied in the loss column with the two teams directly ahead in the standings (Wright State and Detroit at 7-4). 

This week's trip takes CSU to Illinois-Chicago on Thursday and Loyola on Saturday. Despite both Chicago schools having disappointing seasons (tenth and eighth place respectively), the trip to Chicago is never an easy one. 

The Vikings swept the Chicago trip last season, marking the first time in school history that CSU won at UIC and Loyola in the same season. The Vikings also snapped an eight game losing streak at Loyola in the process. 

Thursday 8 p.m. at Illinois-Chicago (5-16, 1-10) on SportsTime Ohio 

UIC has lost eight straight to drop into last place in the Horizon League. Despite the losing, the Flames have played well against some of the HL's top teams, including a hard fought 70-63 CSU victory in the team's first meeting on January 9th. 

Read more...