Jan. 31, 2006

Contact: Brian McCann

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GAME 20
Cleveland State (8-11, 4-5) at Detroit (10-13, 4-6)
Date: Thursday, February 2, 2006
Time: 7:05 p.m. EST
Site: Calihan Hall (8,295), Detroit, Mich.
TV: None. Live video available online through CSTV at CSUVikings.com
Radio: WKNR, 850 AM (Al Pawlowski & Jason Gibbs)
Series: Detroit Leads, 29-8
Last Meeting: CSU 59, Detroit 53 (OT) (1/12/06 at CSU)

SETTING THE SCENE: After a disastrous 0-2 showing at home last week, Cleveland State (8-11, 4-5) returns to the road for three straight games, putting its three-game road winning streak in league games on the line when the Vikings visit Detroit (10-13, 4-6) on Thursday, February 2 beginning at 7:05 p.m. in Detroit's Calihan Hall. The Vikings find themselves in fifth place in the Horizon League with a 4-5 mark after dropping home games to Butler (55-51) and Youngstown State (68-63) last week. CSU is 3-1 on the road in league play, claiming successive wins over Youngstown State (63-50), UIC (87-83) and UW-Green Bay (66-63) earlier this month. This will be the third game for Detroit in a stretch that has the Titans playing four games in eight days. Detroit dropped a 45-42 decision at UW-Green Bay on Monday night to fall into a sixth place tie with Youngstown State and Loyola in the league standings.

PREVIEWING CLEVELAND STATE: After struggling to find an identity over the first half of the season, the Vikings have settled into a pattern over the last month, entering the week with a three-game Horizon League road winning streak. Junior guard Raheem Moss (10.8 ppg, 3.7 rpg) continues to be the offensive barometer of the team with newcomers Ije Nwankwo (11.0, 5.3) and J'Nathan Bullock (9.9, 4.3) combining to give CSU one of the strongest front lines in the Horizon League. Junior Carlos English (8.5 ppg, 4.8 apg) gives the Vikings a point guard who not only excels at running the offense, but adds the extra dimensions of playing defense and being able to score from the perimeter. Veterans Patrick Tatham (8.0 ppg, 5.6 rpg), Frashon McGee (5.3, 6.0) and Victor Morris (5.9, 2.6 apg) have proven to be the backbone of the squad, each averaging more than 20 minutes a game. The unusual depth of the Vikings -- CSU plays as many as 12 players every game -- allows Mike Garland to run his high-intensity schemes while giving him additional substitutions for most situations.

SOME HOME COURT EDGE: The homecourt advantage doesn't seem to apply this year in Horizon League play if the Vikings are one of the two teams involved in a game. In the nine league games involving CSU, the home team has gone just 2-7 with CSU winning three of its four games on the road and dropping four of the five at home. In the 30 league games that haven't involved the Vikings, the home team is 25-9. CSU is the only Horizon League team to have a losing record at home this year (5-7).

. . . ROAD STREAK MEETS LONGEST STREAK: If the Vikings want to extend their current three-game Horizon League road winning streak, they are going to have to do it at the toughest venue in Viking history. CSU goes into the game having lost all 17 games it has played against the Titans in Detroit, 16 of which have been played in Calihan Hall. Snapping road losing streaks is not new to the Vikings. Last year, CSU won for the first time in 11 games in Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse.

VIKINGS DRAW DELAWARE AS PART OF BRACKETBUSTERS: Cleveland State will host Delaware of the Colonial Athletic Association on Saturday, February 18 beginning at 5:30 p.m. in a pool game that is part of the 2006 BracketBusters presented by ebay. The pairings for the fourth annual event were announced earlier this week with 100 teams representing 18 different conferences taking part in the event. This is the third year that CSU is taking part in the event, hosting Eastern Michigan in 2004 and playing at Central Michigan last year.

STREAMING VIDEO AVAILABLE ONLNE OF CSU GAMES: Under a new plan put in place during the off-season, all Horizon League men's and women's conference games will be available either via over-the-air or cable television or via video streaming on the League's official web site at www.horizonleague.org. All games not cleared on television will be shown live on the web through a new partnership with College Sports TV Online, which also is the web provider for five League schools and the conference office. The service is available for free once a guest registers and can be accessed by clicking on the link on CSUVikings.com. Each broadcast will feature the radio play-by-play of the host school and video taken from at least three different camera angles.

VIKINGS ARE ONE WIN AWAY FROM LAST YEAR: With at least nine games to go in the season, Cleveland State stands just one win away from equaling last year's nine-win total.

A NEW LEADER: Saturday's game against Youngstown State was the 65th meeting all-time with the Penguins, allowing them to take over the mantra as the most-often played opponent in Vikings basketball history. Youngstown State is only the third team to own the distinction, and the first in over 70 years. Detroit Tech was the first, playing Fenn College twice during each of the first three seasons. Hiram has held the lead since Jan. 16, 1934, when the Terriers played their seventh game against Fenn. Hiram went on to play the Foxes twice a year from 1935-36 until the series was discontinued following the 1967-68 season.

THE BROTHERHOOD BAND: Each member of the Viking basketball team and coaching staff are sporting green wristbands this year that are emblazoned with the word "Brotherhood," one of the squad's themes for the season. Mike Garland created the band as a way to show the team the importance of unity. CSU hosted a group of basketball alumni for a dinner before the first practice of the year on Oct. 14, after which Garland passed out the bands to the alumni in a ceremony at mid-court. Garland then had each of the alumni put a band on the wrist of each of the players and coaches.

. . . AND THE HAMMER: On the first day of preseason practice, as the basketball team, coaches and alumni watched, Mike Garland used a sledgehammer to crush a concrete cinder block that had inscribed on it the names of each school that CSU lost to over the previous two seasons. The action was taken to symbolically show that the frustration of the last two years is behind the Vikings. The sledgehammer has since been given a new paint job and it accompanies CSU to all games as a reminder to the Viking players.

MAKING THE GRADE: The Vikings turned in one of their best performances in the classroom in recent memory during the just completed fall semester. The 17 players on the roster combined to post a 2.82 GPA for the semester with Vikings Robert Clark, Steve Kallman, Cory Rojeck and Greg Vlosich each earning a spot on the Dean's List with Clark overcoming knee surgery during the week before finals to record a perfect 4.0 GPA.

SHOOTING WOES: The Vikings are in the midst of their worst shooting slump in the three seasons under Mike Garland. CSU has managed to shoot better than 40-percent just once in the last eight games, going 171-for-455 from the field (.376). The Vikings are last in the Horizon League in field goal offense (.403), the lowest figure by a CSU team since a .399 effort in 1971-72.

THE LINEUP SHUFFLE HAS STOPPED: After using six different starting lineups in the first six games, the Vikings have settled into a rhythm, using only two different starting squads in the last 14 games. The lone change came nine games ago when Ije Nwankwo started at center, moving Patrick Tatham to small forward and Luke Murphy to a reserve role. The nine straight games started by the unit of English, Moss, Tatham, Bullock and Nwankwo is the longest streak by any combination under head coach Mike Garland. The previous long was a six-game stretch set last year (Redell, Chavis, Moss, Westley & Tatham).

PETTY THEFT: The emphasis on defense is illustrated well by the steal totals of the Vikings players. Not only is CSU leading the league averaging 8.8 steals a game, but five CSU players are averaging at least one steal a game. Carlos English leads the way with a league high 38 steals. Raheem Moss is second on the squad with 22 thefts while Patrick Tatham has 21 and both Frashon McGee and J'Nathan Bullock have 20 each.

REBOUNDING TO REBOUND: One statistic that puzzled Mike Garland early in the season was the ineffectiveness of the Vikings in rebounding, especially considering the emphasis that Garland places on that aspect of the game. In the first seven games, CSU had an advantage on the boards just once, being out-rebounded by an average of 9.4 rebounds a game. The Viking turned things around in the last 12 contests, owning a +2.5 rebounding margin and grabbing more rebounds than their opponents in eight of the 12 games.

. . . COULD IT BE THE IJE FACTOR? The turnaround of the Viking rebounding effort coincides perfectly with Ije Nwankwo becoming eligible following his transfer from Purdue. Nwankwo may only rank third on the team averaging 5.3 rebounds a game, but the addition of him to the lineup may have given the rest of the Vikings the boost they needed.

McGEE BECOMES THE SIXTH MAN: The Vikings have received a big boost this year from the all-around play off the bench by senior Frashon McGee. He leads the team in rebounding (6.0) and field goal percentage (35-67, .522), and is second on the squad in blocks (11) and fourth in steals (20). He has averaged 7.2 rebounds over the last nine games, including a career-high 10 boards against Butler, to move up to ninth in the Horizon League in rebounding. Included in his totals was a career game against Wright State on Jan. 5 when he made all four of his field goal and all four of his free throw attempts en route to scoring a career-high 14 points while adding seven rebounds, two steals and a block.

. . . AND McGEE & HENDERSON LIKE THEIR ROLES: Evidence of the leadership ability of Frashon McGee came just before the holiday break when he, along with fellow senior Justin Henderson, approached Mike Garland with the request to spend part of each practice playing on the scout team. The request came because both McGee and Henderson, who had each settled into reserve roles at that point in the year, were confident that they would be ready for whatever role that Garland called them to fill and they wanted to help make the starting unit better.

THE DEFENSE NEVER RESTS: True to the words of head coach Mike Garland, the Vikings have used a blue-collar defensive work ethic to win games this year. Evidence of this is that CSU enters the weekend leading the Horizon League in three of the biggest defensive categories -- field goal defense (.418), three-point defense (.293) and steals (8.8) -- while ranking third in blocks (3.2).

. . . DEFENSE IS ON A RECORD PACE: Through 19 games, the Vikings are on a pace defensively to challenge a pair of school records. CSU has limited its opponents to just .418 shooting from the field (422-1,011), which is just off the school record of .415 for a season set in 2001-02. The story is the same around the perimeter where the current three-point field goal defense of .293 (83-286) is well ahead of the school record of .300 (134-447) set in 1993-94.

NWANKWO SETTLES IN: It has taken junior center Ije Nwankwo a couple of games to get settled, but his play of late has ignited the Vikings at both ends of the court. Over the last five games, Nwankwo has averaged 14.0 points and 6.6 rebounds, shooting .489 from the field (22-45) and .684 from the line (26-38).

. . . AND RANKING IJE: Junior Ije Nwankwo will not qualify for the Horizon League statistical rankings this year because by missing eight games early in the year, he will not be able to play in the required 75 percent of CSU's games. Nwankwo, who has played in 11 of the 19 games (57.9 percent), would rank sixth in blocks (0.9), 14th in rebounding (5.3), 17th in scoring (11.0).

A RETURN HOME FOR CSU'S MICHIGANDERS: Thursday's game at Detroit will be a return home for five Viking players in the traveling party this week, including juniors Victor Morris (Inkster), Carlos English (Detroit) and Ije Nwankwo (Ann Arbor), sophomore Jason Holder (Saginaw) and freshman J'Nathan Bullock (Flint). A sixth Viking -- senior Justin Henderson -- played two seasons of junior college basketball at Glen Oaks Community College in Centreville, Mich. In addition, most of the coaching staff has Michigan ties. Head coach Mike Garland grew up (and later coached) in Belleville, played his college ball at Northern Michigan and coached at Michigan State. Assistant coaches Rick Albro and Luke Brown also have extensive ties, Albro graduating from Western Michigan and coaching for 32 years in schools in St. Charles, Marlette and Grand Rapids while Brown attended Michigan State.

TATHAM GETS NEW STARTING ROLE: After starting at center in 39 games during his first three seasons at CSU, junior Patrick Tatham received a different assignment starting with the Jan. 2 game at UW-Milwaukee when he started at small forward. The change came when Mike Garland inserted Ije Nwankwo into the starting lineup at center, allowing Tatham to move to his more natural position. Small forward is nothing new to Tatham, who has seen time at the spot this year when Justin Henderson or Renard Fields were in the game.

THE PROOF IS IN THE MINUTES: The depth of the Vikings this year is evident in the playing rotation. CSU currently has 10 players averaging 9.0 minutes or more a game with nine of the 10 Vikings having seen action in at least all but two games this year. Victor Morris (24.2 mpg) and Frashon McGee (21.6), who do not start, are two of the seven players averaging more than 20 minutes a game.

NWANKWO HAS AN IMPACT AT THE LINE: Junior center Ije Nwankwo has been of of the big reasons why the Vikings have begun to have an edge at the foul line. In the 10 games since becoming eligible, Nwankwo has made 37 of his 53 free throw attempts (.698). He has gone to the line at least four times in a game seven times, including 10 times against Akron and nine at UW-Green Bay.

THE BABY BULL-OCK: Freshman forward J'Nathan Bullock is living up to the expectations that has made him one of the top newcomers on the team this year. Bullock is third on the team in scoring (9.9), posting double figure scoring efforts 10 times this year. He came off the bench to lead CSU with 15 points, six rebounds and three steals at North Carolina on Nov. 22. He set a career high with 21 points at Kent State on Dec. 3 and posted a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds against Utah Valley State on Dec. 20.

GOING OVERTIME: After not playing an overtime game during the first two seasons under head coach Mike Garland, the Vikings have played two this year, winning both. The most recent came against Detroit on Jan. 12 when CSU rallied from 12 points down in the second half. The Dec. 20 win over Utah Valley State was similar as the Vikings trailed by 13 with 12:11 left. The overtime periods have been a different story as CSU has trailed for just 17 seconds in the two wins. Cleveland State is now 36-30 all-time in games extended to overtime, including 22-14 in home games.

NEXT UP: The Vikings continue their road swing by playing at Loyola on Saturday (Feb. 4).