Nov. 15, 2009
Contact: Brian McCann
Complete Release in PDF Format
• Purchase Tickets Game 2 SETTING THE SCENE: After opening the 2009-10 season at St. Bonaventure on Friday night, Cleveland State returns home to open the 17-game home campaign this week when the Vikings host Wilmington College on Monday, Nov. 16 beginning at 11:30 a.m. in the Wolstein Center. The rare matinee start will be a Businessman's Special with fans being invited to bring their lunch and purchase a $5 ticket or get a $10 ticket that includes a hot dog, chips and drink from the concession stand. The Vikings are 36-42 in their previous 78 home openers, including wins in each of the last two seasons. Cleveland State (0-1) returns two starters and six lettermen from last year's Viking team that went 26-11, won the Horizon League tournament championship and beat Wake Forest to advance to the second round of the NCAA Championship. Wilmington College was 16-10 a year ago. PREVIEWING CLEVELAND STATE: Gary Waters finds himself in a bit of a rebuilding season for the Vikings after posting the first back-to-back 20 win seasons since the late 1980's. With just two starters and four players back who saw significant action last year, Waters must quickly incorporate eight new players into the lineup this season. The starting lineup is built around guard Norris Cole (13.3 ppg, 2.5 rpg), a first team preseason all-league choice this year, and small forward D'Aundray Brown (7.5, 5.7), the lone returning starters from a season ago. The strength of the returners is at guard where sophomores Jeremy Montgomery (4.0, 0.8) and Trevon Harmon (5.2, 1.2) are back and should vie for a starting berth. The rest of the rotation at guard should include sophomore Josh McCoy (0.9, 1.0) and JC transfer Lance James (23.4, 6.1 apg). Brown is firmly entrenched at small forward with redshirt freshman Charlie Woods (17.5, 8.5) also capable of seeing time at the postion. Sophomore Joe Latas (1.4, 0.4) is the lone returner inside. JC transfer Jared Cunningham (9.5, 5.1) has the edge on the power forward spot with redshirt freshman Tim Kamczyc (26.1, 6.4) and first-year sophomore Nigel Ajere (20.4, 11.1) also vying for time at the spot. Sophomore Aaron Pogue (7.1, 5.6) is the starter at center with Latas and junior Kevin Anderson (10.4, 9.9) both being capable of seeing minutes. "PROTECT THIS HOUSE": Gary Waters believes that in order to have a championship program, the team first needs to be successful at home. With that in mind, he has chosen, "Protect This House" as the team motto for the 2009-10 season. With a 17-game home schedule, the second highest season total in school history and the most since 1983-84, CSU can go a long way in achieving another successful campaign by winning at home first. The Vikings have heeded Waters' advice in the past, going 25-4 in the Wolstein Center over the last two years, a significant improvement from the 25-42 record in the Wolstein Center over the previous five seasons. The success started in 2007-08 when CSU tied the Wolstein Center record for wins in a season with a 12-2 mark. The Vikings did that mark one better, going 13-2 at home last season. . . . AND VIKINGS PUT HOME WIN STREAK ON THE LINE: Cleveland State will put its Wolstein Center record 11-game win streak on the line against Wilmington on Monday. It is the fourth-longest home winning streak in school history, trailing a 22-game streak from Nov. 1985 through Jan., 1987. CSU has also had a 15 and 13 game home win streak, most of which was played in Woodling Gym. FOR HOME OPENERS: Monday's game against Wilmington will mark the beginning of the 79th home season of basketball at Cleveland State with the Vikings owning a 35-43 mark in home openers. CSU is 10-8 in home openers in the Wolstein Center, including wins to start each of the last two seasons. BIG DEBUTS: One question heading into the season was which players would emerge inside for the Vikings this year. After all, the only returning player inside from last season was Joe Latas, who scored 22 points with seven rebounds in 62 minutes of action. Some of the questions were answered at St. Bonaventure as starters Jared Cunningham and Aaron Pogue each scored 11 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the game. The duo combined to grab nine of CSU's 14 offensive rebounds. IT WAS A STEAL: D'Aundray Brown returned to the lineup at St. Bonaventure for the first time since the opening round game of the Horizon League Championship when he hurt his knee in the second half vs. Detroit. Brown was his old self, scoring nine points (on four-for-eight shooting) while making a career high five steals. TURNOVERS: When the Vikings committed 25 tunorvers in the exhibition win over John Carroll last week, Gary Waters said that taking better care of the ball would be a focus for the Vikings. The extra attention worked as CSU turned the ball over just 12 times in the opener at St. Bonaventure, including three in the second half. The Vikings forced 17 turnovers in the game, giving them a +5 turnover margin. Last year, CSU averaged 12.3 turnovers a game, leading the league with a +3.6 turnover margin. COLE NAMED TO ALL-HORIZON LEAGUE SQUAD: Junior guard Norris Cole was rewarded for his hard work when he was one of five players named to the 2009-10 Preseason All-Horizon League first team in a balloting conducted of the league's coaches, sports information directors and select media. Cole, a native of Dayton, Ohio, set a school record last year by starting all 37 games. He ranked sixth in the league with a 13.3 scoring average with eight 20 point games. Like all dominant players, he was able to elevate his game when it was most needed. He averaged 17.5 points in the six games against schools with major college football and led the team in both NCAA tournament games (19.5 ppg). SEEING TRIPLE: It was interesting that in the exhibition win over John Carroll on Monday (Nov. 9), the three-point shot returned as a weapon in the Viking attack. In the game, CSU made 10 of its 23 three-point attempts (.435), making more treys than they had in any single game during all of last season. In fact, if you go back over the last two years, the Vikings averaged 4.7 treys, the lowest average since 1995-96. The .311 shooting percentage from beyond the arc last year was fifth lowest in school history and it came on the heels of a .302 effort in 2007-08, the second-lowest percentage ever. VIKINGS PICKED THIRD IN PRESEASON POLL: Cleveland State was picked to finish third in the Horizon League this year in the annual preseason poll of the league's coaches, SIDs and select media. CSU, which was the favorite a year ago and went on to win the tournament title, received 324 total points with two first place votes. Defending regular season champion Butler is the preseason favorite after garnering 43 of the 46 first place votes and 455 total points. Wright State was picked second with 398 points and one first place vote. DOUBLE THE PLEASURE FOR VIKING FANS: Viking basketball fans will once again have the opportunity to see the men's and women's squads in action on the same day as CSU will play three home doubleheaders this year. Two of the doubleheaders come at the end of the year when both teams play Detroit on Feb. 25 and Wright State on Feb. 27. The most interesting double dip comes on Dec. 19 when the men host West Virginia at 2:00 p.m. followed by the women's tilt against Indiana at 4:30 p.m. . . . AND THE VIKINGS LIKE PLAYING TWO: The Vikings have enjoyed a great deal of success playing doubleheaders over the last two years. The men own a 10-1 record in the 11 twinbills over that span, falling only to Butler last year. The women's team has been equally as impressive, going 9-2 with both losses coming at the hands of Green Bay, who won the regular season title each year. COLE LIKES THE BCS: There is something about playing a big game that gets sophomore Norris Cole to elevate his game to a higher level. After all, in the six games last season against the high major -- or BCS schools -- Cole averaged 17.3 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals, shooting .457 from the field (42-92). He set a then-career high with 20 points and nine rebounds vs. Washington (Nov. 18), tallied 17 points vs. Kansas State (Nov. 22), 16 at Syracuse (Dec. 15) and 12 against West Virginia (Dec. 6). He came back to lead CSU with 22 points against Wake Forest in the NCAA Tournament and tally a team-high 17 points in the second round vs. Arizona. BROWN RECEIVES AVIS SCHOLARSHIP: Junior guard D'Aundray Brown is the 2009-10 recipient of the Danferd C. Avis Endowed Basketball Scholarship, the first fully endowed scholarship for basketball at CSU. The scholarship is named in honor of Dan Avis, a member of the men's basketball team from 1947-50, who has been involved in Viking athletics for more than 50 years. A captain on the Fenn College teams in each of his last three years, Avis was inducted in the CSU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1980 and remains active with the Varsity "C" Club. HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER: One year after the entire Viking squad spent 11 days touring Spain during the month of August, two Vikings made summer road trips to different continents with various touring all-star teams. Sophomore center Joe Latas headed to Europe for a five-game, 10-day tour of Prague and Vienna with the East Coast All-Stars, a team predominantly made up of players from the Big East and Big 12 Conferences. Junior guard Norris Cole headed down under, traveling for almost two weeks to play six games in New Zealand. VIKINGS TO PASS 750,000 MARK: Although the mark may be modest by most school standards, it is an accomplishment nonetheless as some time during the 2009-10 season, the Vikings will welcome the 750,000th fan to CSU men's basketball games in the Wolstein Center. The Vikings enter the year having drawn 733,265 fans to the building for men's basketball games since the facility opened. If averages hold, the 750,000th fan will most likely attend the game against West Virginia on Dec. 19. THE FIFTH DEGREE: All five of the Viking seniors on last year's roster have graduated. J'Nathan Bullock, Cedric Jackson, Renard Fields and George Tandy each earned their sheepskin during spring commencement ceremonies with Chris Moore picking up his degree in August after taking a couple of classes during summer session. CSU IN THE WOLSTEIN CENTER: Cleveland State is starting its 19th season playing in Henry Goodman Arena in the Bert L. and Iris S. Wolstein Center. The Vikings own a 139-102 (.577) record during that span, including winning records in eight of the last 12 seasons. VIKINGS DEDICATE GOLF OUTING TO PACKY: It was a bittersweet day when the CSU basketball coaching staff and players hosted its third annual golf outing on June 1. Sweet because it was a beautiful spring day. Bitter because they did so without one of their biggest supporters, Packy Hyland, Sr., who had passed away several days before after a long illness and was buried on the day of the outing. "When I returned to coach at Cleveland State three years ago, Packy was one of the first people to come up to me and ask me what he could do to help this program," Gary Waters said. "Since that time, he was always there for us whenever we needed help and he was a driving force behind this tournament being so successful." Prior to his passing, the Vikings renamed the tourney the CSU Men's Basketball Packy Hyland, Sr. Golf Outing. CSU BASKETBALL INSIDER: The Vikings received a little extra publicity during the preseason when students in the CSU School of Communication produced three episodes of the CSU Basketball Insider, a sister show to The Viking Basketball Report, which normally airs during the season. The CBI went on location at three different campus venues to capture a behind the scenes look at the Viking basketball program as it progressed through preseason practice. Episode two was taped live at the annual Viking Madness event on Oct. 17 at Woodling Gym. A BLAST FROM THE PAST: When the Vikings host Wilberforce on Sat., Dec. 12, CSU will turn back the clock to the 1980's by playing the game in historic Woodling Gym, which served as the primary home court for the Vikings from 1973-74 until the Wolstein Center opened in 1991-92. Cleveland State dominated play during that period, winning over 85-percent of the games played in the 3,000 seat facility, going 123-21 (.854), including three undefeated seasons (15-0 in 1985-86, 13-0 in 1987-88 and 11-0 in 1981-82). This will be the second game played in the facility since the Wolstein Center opened. CSU routed Rochester College, 76-43, early in the 2005-06 season. The pressure will be on CSU this year as the Vikings have never had a losing season playing in Woodling Gym. SUCCESS 401: The fourth edition of Success Class under Gary Waters is utilizing the book The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player by John Maxwell as the course text. Instituted at CSU in the summer of 2006, Waters uses Success Class to teach the Viking players the finer points of what it takes to succeed. Success Class 101 used John Wooden's book, The Pyramid of Success. In 2007-08, Waters relied on John Maxwell's book Talent Is Never Enough to instruct the Vikings and then turned to former Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy's book, Quiet Strength for a text last year. The non-credited class is taught weekly by Waters to the Viking players over the summer and preseason months. VIKINGS GET EXPANDED TV EXPOSURE: Cleveland State continues to receive good national and regional television exposure this year as at least 14 games will be televised live during the season. Heading the list of broadcast games are the Dec. 3 contest at Wright State and the Jan. 30 home game vs. Youngstown State, both of which will be televised on ESPNU. SportsTimeOhio remains the local TV partner of CSU, televising four home games live and bringing feeds of several road contests back to Ohio. In addition, STO will be the home of the Horizon League Game of the Week package, an eight-game package of league contests that will be played at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday throughout the league slate. Included in the game of the week schedule are the Vikings' Jan. 16 game at Valparaiso and the Feb. 13 home game against Butler. In non-league action, the two CSU road games at the Cancun Challenge will be televised on CBS College Sports, the Dec. 22 meeting with Ohio State will be on the Big Ten Network and the Dec. 29 game at Kansas State and the Dec. 5 meeting at Detroit will both be televised on Fox Sports. VIKING BASKETBALL REPORT RETURNS: The Viking Basketball Report, with Head Coach Gary Waters returns for a fourth season on SportsTime Ohio. The half-hour weekly show includes game recaps, highlights and features on players and other elements of the program. The show is hosted by Mike Cairns with commentary from Waters. It will air multiple times every week starting the week of Nov. 16, usually debuting on Tuesday evening. NEXT UP: The Vikings remain at home this week to open play in the Cancun Challenge against Florida A&M on Thursday (Nov. 19) and Sam Houston State on Saturday (Nov. 21) with both games beginning at 7:00 p.m. in the Wolstein Center.
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