Nov. 15, 2008

Final Stats |  Notes

Contact: Brian McCann

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CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland State opened the season in dramatic fashion, rallying for a 58-55 win over Oakland in the season opener for both teams on Saturday night in the Wolstein Center.

The Vikings trailed the entire game until Norris Cole hit a jumper with 3:12 left to give the Vikings a 55-53 lead. Cole then hit a three-pointer with 1:58 left to push the lead to five, but a jumper by Oakland's Jonathon Jones sliced the CSU lead back to three points (58-55).

Neither team was able to score again, but Oakland did have a chance to tie the game, but Jones missed a three-pointer at the buzzer to give CSU the win.

"Oakland is a great team and they gave us all we wanted," head coach Gary Waters said. "But I think we kind of helped them because we couldn't buy a bucket and we shot the ball poorly. But we defended well and that gave us a chance to win the game. Our young kids really stepped up and we need that to happen this season.

"I think the key was that we were able to shut down Jonathon (Jones). He averaged 17 points per game last season and we guarded him to death. Their big kid (Keith Benson) was pretty good and he was hurting us inside because they ran some really good backpicks and we didn't adjust as well as we should have."

Brown led the Vikings with a career-high 15 points on 7-of-9 shooting and added six boards and four steals. Cole matched his career-high with 14 points, chipping in a steal. J'Nathan Bullock added a double-double effort of 11 points and 10 boards, while George Tandy had four points, three boards and three blocks.

The Vikings, who shot just 7-of-32 (.219) from the field in the first half, came back to shoot 16-of-34 (.471) in the second half.

Keith Benson led Oakland with 15 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks, while Erik Kangas had 11 points.

The Vikings forced 19 Oakland turnovers, including 14 in the second half. CSU turned the ball over just 12 times. Oakland held a 47-43 advantage on the boards.

The first half was filled with scoring runs as neither team shot well from the field.

Oakland started the game out quickly, using an 11-2 run early to build a 19-7 lead with 13:14 left.

But the Vikings had a run of their own, countering with a 9-0 spurt that allowed them to pull to within a basket, 20-18 with 8:35 left in the half.

Oakland answered right back with a 9-1 burst of its own, extending the lead back to double figures, 29-19 with 2:46 left.

Baskets by George Tandy and Cole down the stretch allowed the Vikings to close to within 31-24 at the intermission.

Defense won out on both ends of the court as Oakland shot .324 from the field in the first half (11-34) while the Vikings could make just seven of its 32 attempts (.219), including a .143 effort from beyond the arc (2-14).

Despite constant defensive pressure, both sides took good care of the ball, committing just five turnovers each.

Oakland extended the lead to 10 points (46-36) just four minutes into the second half on a pair of free throws from Benson, but the Vikings consistently hung around throughout the half, cutting the Grizzly lead to two points (48-46) with 7:25 left on a J'Nathan Bullock layup and another Bullock layup with 3:31 left.

"J'Nathan started being a man inside and when he does that, he is hard to handle," Waters said.

CSU outscored Oakland, 16-7, over the final nine minutes of the game to rally for the win.

The Vikings will be back in action on Tuesday (Nov. 18) when CSU travels to Washington for a 10:00 p.m. EST game.