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March 6, 2015Their regular season ended with disappointment, and their path to the NCAA Tournament is much tougher than it would have been had they beaten Valparaiso last Friday, but the Cleveland State Vikings ain’t dead yet. They are the number four seed in the eight-team Horizon League tournament, and Friday night they play the Detroit Titans in Valparaiso, Indiana for the chance to face the top-seeded Crusaders on Saturday.
Valpo has the gaudiest record at 26-5, Green Bay has the conference player of the year in Keifer Sykes, and Oakland has perhaps the league’s best inside-out combo in Kahlil Felder and Corey Petros. But the Vikings have as good a shot as anyone to come out of the Horizon League.
Consider that CSU is the only team to have two all-league first-team selections in Anton Grady and Trey Lewis. Consider that Grady was among the league’s very best all-around players, and the only one to rank in the top six in points, rebounds, steals, blocks, and field goal percentage in conference games. Consider that Lewis scored 20-plus points 11 times, and that he twice went off for 30-plus. Consider that Lewis and Charlie Lee both shot better than 43 percent from three-point land. Consider that the Vikings average a shade under eight steals per game, 35th-best out of all 347 Division I teams.
I understand if you’re not convinced. I understand that I’m just an optimistic yahoo hoping that the boys in green can produce some late-season magic. Perhaps you’d put more stock in something published by ESPN?1 The folks there have devised a formula aimed at finding the most likely giant killers in each league, and our hometown Vikings were their selection from the Horizon. To wit:
Best Killer: Cleveland State Vikings
Key stat: Steals on 11.7 percent of opponent possessions (ranking 33rd)
Our take: When we first computerized our model, Cleveland State was the very first Giant Killer it spotted, way back in 2009. And sometimes historical connections are more than sentimental: As we have written, “In the time-honored tradition of Cedric Jackson, Norris Cole and D’Aundray Brown, the Vikings pressure the ball on D.” They always force scads of turnovers while shooting well from downtown and keeping the tempo slow — and that collection of traits always serves Killers well. After an up-and-down season, Cleveland State now has to win the Horizon tournament; it went 3-3 this season against its three most likely opponents, with its three losses coming by a total of five points.
The folks at SB Nation aren’t sleeping on the Vikes either:
[Valpo and Green Bay are the favorites, but] a couple of the lower seeds could end up crashing the party. Cleveland State is the obvious choice, having swept Green Bay in the regular season.
I don’t have any computerized model, but there’s hope here, folks. There are caveats, to be sure—the Vikes are inconsistent, they’re small, they struggle to score if Lewis has an off night or Grady is in foul trouble—but the 2015 Horizon League is not the 1988 Big East. There is no team sniffing the caliber of Kentucky, Duke, or Virginia. Everyone can lose. Everyone can win.
“If we’re gonna win this thing, we gotta win it the hard way.” Those were Gary Waters’ words after the Vikings’ loss to Valpo. They have to win three straight, which would certainly include a rubber match with the Crusaders and likely a third date with 23-7 Green Bay. It won’t be easy. But it can be done.
On that note, let us see how Cleveland State could punch a ticket to the Big Dance.
The first step is beating Detroit. The Vikings split with the Titans in the regular season, winning by four at home and losing by a point on the road. Detroit is not an especially good team, having tallied a sub-.500 record, but they boast the conference’s second-leading scorer in Juwan Howard, Jr. and the league’s freshman of the year in 6-7 guard Paris Bass. They beat Valpo once and stomped Oakland by 20. They have perhaps the greatest gap between their potential floor and ceiling of any Horizon League squad.
It’s not a gimme by any means, but the Vikings should be able to dispatch the Titans. They beat them without Swiss Army knife Kaza Keane and rim rattler Marlin Mason, and lost only when Charlie Lee’s game-winning runner rimmed out after Juwan Howard buried a three from Ontario. Anton Grady was limited by foul trouble to 19 minutes in the loss. A lot of things had to go well for Detroit to beat CSU at home. Look for a Viking victory on a neutral Valparaiso court.
Next would be a showdown with Valpo. This would be the toughest game of the lot, and the odds are surely not in Cleveland State’s favor, especially playing the game in Indiana. Valpo is big; they start three guys over 6-8, including the conference Defensive Player of the Year, 6-10 center Vashil Fernandez (2.9 blocks per game). They can shoot; three regulars hit triples at a rate better than 37 percent, including star sophomore Alec Peters (47 percent). They take care of the boards; they ranked 29th in the nation in rebounds per game.
Perhaps most importantly, they’re well-coached. Bryce Drew is 92-41 in his four years as Valpo skipper, and his charges play a smart brand of ball. They box out. They sprint back in transition. They play hard. Drew has their ear, and he makes the most of it. During the Crusaders’ win in Cleveland last weekend, he constructed little objectives throughout the game to challenge his team: Win this possession. One-and-done here. Get three straight stops. He’s a formidable salesman, and his team has bought in.
But they’re not unbeatable. Cleveland State’s two losses came by five total points. They can play with this team, and they won’t be lacking for inspiration. That last home loss killed the Vikings. It killed them. Trey Lewis, and especially Anton Grady, could barely squeeze air past their lips in the post-game presser. They would have looked less distraught if you told them Christmas was cancelled and it’s all their fault. They were positively wrecked. But misery doesn’t have a long shelf life in basketball. It transforms into rage.
The Vikings will be good and mad if they meet Valpo again. Beating the Crusaders would be payback. Beating them would mean ending their season, and doing it on their home court. Beating them would prove that they can beat anyone in the league. Beating them would mean playing more ball. Beating them would mean that seniors Charlie Lee and Marlin Mason would get to play at least one more game.
More than anything, it comes down to how much Sidney Deane the Vikings have in them.
Deane is Wesley Snipes’ character in White Men Can’t Jump. While scouting the competition in a big-money 2-on-2 tournament, Deane’s playing partner, Woody Harrelson’s Billy Hoyle, makes a big show of talking trash to their opponents. The reason is twofold. First, per Hoyle, “Most guys don’t play good (sic) when they’re mad.” Second, Hoyle believes that Deane in fact does better when he’s mad. Billy Ho turns out to be prescient as—spoiler alert for a 23-year-old movie—he and Sidney go on to win the tourney’s $5,000 grand prize.
(Language NSFW. Subtitles Swedish)
The Vikes need to employ emotion responsibly to beat Valpo at their place. They were cranked up to 11 in the season finale at home, but 11 is not tenable; you’ll blow the amp. Instead, to borrow from Denzel Washington’s Herman Boone, they need to control that anger and harness that aggression into a team effort to achieve perfection. That’s what it will take to get to the conference finals.
By then, it will be either Oakland or Green Bay, and it will be at their gym since both teams are seeded higher than CSU. Cleveland State swept Green Bay and split with Oakland. Both are good teams, but two straight wins would have the Vikings flying high.
They corralled Keifer Sykes in their two wins against the Phoenix, including a 14-point cruise at home. Sykes is more of a driver than a marksman, and at 6-foot and 180 pounds, he lacks the size to cause any significant mismatch. Green Bay has shown no game plan for containing Lewis or Grady, as the pair combined to average 45 points and 18 rebounds in two outings against them. Sometimes basketball just comes down to matchups, and Cleveland State may be the mongoose to Green Bay’s snake.
CSU’s games against Oakland were hard-fought, with the Vikings winning by four at home and losing by three on the road. The Golden Grizzlies enter the tournament having won four of five and 11 of their last 14. They suffered five straight losses during a brutal road trip that included stops at Michigan State, Arizona, Pitt, Clemson, and Maryland, but acquitted themselves well in conference play. 5-foot-9 sophomore Kahlil Felder averaged 17.4 points and 7.7 assists, and 6-10 center Corey Petros is a daily double-double threat. If these teams square off in the finals, it’s anybody’s game.
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It won’t be easy for Cleveland State. They could easily lose each of these games, but such is the nature of postseason college hoops. They have plenty on their side, and they’ll have a credible claim to the two best players on the court in every game with Lewis and Grady. Lee is an experienced floor general, and his voice is the loudest on the team.
I saw Trey Lewis in the city after that loss to Valpo. He was quiet, reflective, not quite brooding. He took the loss hard, especially as a Cleveland native. He spoke in the post-game press conference of letting his team down and using the game as motivation.
Feel like I let the city down tonight. Had a chance to make history and blew it. Tough loss but our season isn't over
— Trey Lewis (@Treylew3) February 28, 2015
The most telling sign is that he didn’t hide. He was out in his CSU jacket and CSU winter hat. Even in defeat, he was a proud Viking. This team doesn’t just wear Cleveland across their chest during games. They are full-time committed to representing their school and this city.
I’ve written off the Vikings before. I’m not about to do it again.
- It’s Insider content. Sorry, gang. Hat tip to WFNY’s Joe Gilbert for passing it along. [↩]
2 Comments
Computer’s love the Indians this year.
Computer’s love the Cavs this year.
Computer’s love the Vikings this year.*
In short, computer’s love Cleveland and may spare the city in the coming man v. machine apocalypse.
*I’m not forgetting a major Cleveland team, right? we got them all listed?
It’s sad to see that the conference tournament game tonight wasn’t even mentioned at all in the PD today.