Blinded by the Lights: Cleveland State Struggles on Big Stage

For any team, those words hurt to say after a loss. They especially hurt for this Cleveland State team. For a team whose reputation is built around defense; for a team that led the conference in steals (officially) and floor burns (unofficially); for a team whose attitude embodies the nebulous but fierce Rust Belt identity; for a team forged of players from places like Cleveland, Detroit, Dayton, and Milwaukee; for a team more likely to win on industry than artistry, the words hurt.

“They played harder than us,” Trey Lewis said quietly after the Vikings lost to Valparaiso Friday night.

Those words hurt to say, although I’m not sure that they were true. The game was decided by execution more than effort, and the Vikings were outclassed more than outworked, but one’s post-loss universe revolves around perception, not reality. To go into an athlete’s mind postgame is to see an endless loop of every missed shot, every missed rotation, every missed opportunity.

CSU was not lacking for heart, or desire, or passion. The Vikings fought against the Crusaders, but simply lacked the offensive creativity and shot- and play-making necessary to trump their foes’ size.

The disparity in height, weight, and wingspan between the two sides was jarring. Valpo trotted out a starting lineup featuring three players taller than 6-foot-8, while just two Viking starters were taller than 6-3. Charlie Lee spent much of the game matched up against E. Victor Nickerson, who stood a full foot taller, while 6-2 Andre Yates drew the assignment of guarding 6-9 Alec Peters, the Horizon League’s fifth-leading scorer.

The Crusaders shut off driving lanes and doubled Anton Grady’s every catch in the post, daring CSU to beat them from the perimeter. Valpo head coach and former on-court hero Bryce Drew’s gameplan was fiendishly appropriate given Gary Waters’ aversion to the long ball, and the Vikings were torn between taking what their opponents allowed and their coach’s preferred rim-attacking approach.

The CSU team came out strong, scoring at the bucket on two of their first three possessions. Those two scores, however, represented a quarter of the Vikes’ first-half field goals and over 23 percent of their first-half points. There were wide swathes of the half during which Cleveland State could not find the bottom of the net, including the final 5:40 of the period.

The Vikings got plenty of open looks beyond the arc, but were unable to convert. They made just 1-of-10 threes before the intermission, and missed their first four in less than four minutes of game time. They took it to the tin more as the contest went on, but by then they were chasing the victory like a boxer losing on the cards needing a knockout to win. The odds stacked taller and taller against the Vikings, and then fell on top of them like a Jenga tower.

Perhaps the adrenaline was too much. Trey Lewis and Charlie Lee wore wide smiles as they led their team out for pregame layups, their spirits buoyed by the largest and loudest home crowd of the season. Then both players briefly fumbled the basketballs they dribbled out of the tunnel, perhaps encapsulating the team’s struggle to handle its largest stage of the season.

The effects of playing on a big stage have not been fully sussed out. Each athlete adapts differently, and the differences in each sport require different adjustments. A competitor in a sport based on pure speed or power, like sprinting or powerlifting, may benefit more than one employing fine motor skills, like an archer. Basketball falls somewhere between those extremes.

It’s easy to play hard in front of a big crowd. Playing well is a different story, per a Los Angeles Times article by Hilary E. MacGregor, written during the 2004 Olympics:

“In order to play his or her best, an athlete needs to have the maximum amount of energy that you can control effectively,” said David Kauss, a sports and clinical psychologist at UCLA. “That varies from sport to sport, person to person. If you go into a stadium with 10,000 screaming fans, that is going to kick you up a notch, to the point where you might make a mistake.”

For example, he says, even the U.S. men’s basketball team, which includes professional athletes, was unprepared for the crowds in Athens. The players, used to playing in pro arenas, found themselves in Greece on a different court, with different referees and smaller, more passionate, more patriotic crowds. In their first game, against Puerto Rico, they faced half a dozen unexpected variables. By the time they adjusted, Kauss said, it was too late.

By the time they adjusted, it was too late. That sums up the Vikings’ effort against Valpo as effectively as any one sentence can. Cleveland State launched a desperate salvo late, scoring 18 of their 53 points in the final five minutes. The Crusaders weathered the storm, and a four-point play from Alec Peters with 1:11 to go was the deciding knell.

The loss to Valpo and Green Bay’s defeat of Oakland put the Vikings in the four-seed in the Horizon League tournament. They get a single bye rather than the double that would have come with a top-two seed, and they now need to win three games, away from home, to make the NCAA Tournament. They will face the winner of the Detroit-Youngstown State first-round game. If they win that (they swept Youngstown State and split with Detroit this season), they will get a rematch with Valpo at their Indiana home court.

And now, the Cleveland State Vikings have a decision to make. Now, they decide if their season will be defined by a disappointing loss or a spirited postseason run. The loss hurts, yes, and it should hurt. The ecstasy of victory is nothing without the despair of defeat.

But similarly, the despair of defeat is nothing without the hope and promise of the next game. To that end, Trey Lewis had some other words before leaving the postgame presser.

“We’re definitely going to use this as motivation.”

In truth, that’s the only option. Anyone who has taken a few practice shots knows that you can’t end on a miss. Losing to Valpo was a miss. Being knocked down to the four-seed was a miss. Being unable to execute on the biggest stage of the season was a miss.

All the Vikings can do now is put up another shot.