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Vikings Close 2006 At Home Against West Virginia Tech
Dec. 28, 2006
Contact: Brian McCann Complete Release in PDF Format
GAME 15 SETTING THE SCENE: Cleveland State plays its final non-conference game of the season when the Vikings host West Virginia Tech on Saturday, Dec. 30 beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Wolstein Center. The game, which will be televised throughout Ohio on SportsTime Ohio, is a doubleheader with the CSU women's team hosting Wright State at 3:00 p.m. After a 5-3 start, the Vikings have dropped all six games played to date in December, carrying a 5-9 mark into the contest. West Virginia Tech carries a 6-7 record into the contest but the Golden Bears have not played since Dec. 20. As a bonus to Viking fans, the contest will also be streamed live on the internet as part of the Horizon League Network. The video stream can be accessed through either CSUVikings.com or HorizonLeague.com. PREVIEWING CLEVELAND STATE: After using the same starting lineup and player rotation in the first 11 games, the Vikings made some changes over the last three games to help offset the loss of senior Victor Morris (9.7 ppg, 2.5 apg) to a foot injury. The starting unit is dominated by the quartet of senior guards Carlos English (7.3 ppg, 4.4 apg) and Raheem Moss (11.9 ppg), senior forward Patrick Tatham (5.4 ppg, 4.6 rpg) and sophomore forward J'Nathan Bullock (14.4 ppg, 6.4 rpg) with freshman guard Joe Davis (8.9 ppg) filling Morris' spot. Junior Breyohn Watson (2.5 ppg) and sophomores Tristan Crawford (1.9 ppg) and Bahaadar Russell are the three reserves at guard with junior Kevin Francis (6.1 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 1.1 bpg) and sophomore Renard Fields (2.3 ppg, 2.5 rpg) providing depth inside. HEAD COACH Gary Waters: A 32-year collegiate coaching veteran, Gary Waters took over as the head coach of the Vikings in the spring of 2006, bringing with him to Cleveland a head coaching history that included six trips to the postseason in his first 10 years as a head coach. He posted a 92-60 record in five seasons at Kent State, making NCAA appearances in both 1998-99 and 2000-01 and becoming the third coach in Mid-American Conference history to be named league coach of the year in successive years. Waters moved to Rutgers in 2001-02, compiling a 79-75 mark in five seasons, including three trips to the NIT. TV TIMEOUT: Saturday's game is the first of five games being televised throughout Ohio on SportsTime Ohio. STO is a Northern Ohio regional sports network designed to offer a variety of sports programming produced for the Ohio sports fan, with its initial venture being the largest television package in Cleveland Indians team history. Additional programming is geared specifically toward Ohio-area sports fans and the passion that makes this region the greatest sports community. STO will also televise the CSU road game at Youngstown State on Jan. 20, the Feb. 8 home game vs. Butler and the Feb. 14 contest at Wright State. The package closes on Saturday, Feb. 24 when STO will air the regular season ending men's and women's doubleheader against Youngstown State. Mike Cairns and Franklin Edwards will provide the commentary. A ROLLING MOSS GATHERS MANY POINTS: Senior guard Raheem Moss is the hottest player in the Horizon League right now. Over his last three games, he is averaging 24.7 points and 5.7 rebounds, shooting .521 from the field (25-48) and .438 from three-point (14-32) to raise his scoring average to 11.9 points a game, the 15th-highest average in the league this season. The stretch started with a 19-point effort in the double-overtime loss at Central Michigan. Two days later (Dec. 19), he scored 19 points in the first half against Chicago State, finishing the evening with career highs for points (28) and rebounds (10). In his latest outing, Moss tallied 27 points against UIC, 19 of which came in the first half, equaling his career high with six three-pointers. A LITTLE ENGLISH: Senior point guard Carlos English has helped to offset the loss of Victor Morris by focusing his attention on running the Viking offense. In the last four games, English is averaging 7.5 assists per game, handing out six or more assists in each of the contests. Included in that total was a season-high 11 assist effort against UIC on Wednesday night, which was one assist short of equaling his career high of 12 assists, set at Michigan State last year. The 30 assists in those four games has raised English's season average to 4.5 assists per game, the second-highest average in the Horizon League this year. 2,000 MINUTE MEN: Raheem Moss and Patrick Tatham each reached a career milestone in the games around the Christmas break, surpassing the 2,000-minute plateau for their collegiate playing careers. Moss leads the way with 2,049 career minutes played, 304 of which came in 2002-03 as a freshman at Bowling Green. All of Tatham's 2,022 minutes have come at Cleveland State as the senior forward has averaged more than 20 minutes a game in each of his four seasons. . . . TATHAM AVOIDS INJURY BUG TO START 50TH STRAIGHT: If everything goes as expected on Saturday, senior Patrick Tatham will start his 50th straight game when CSU hosts West Virginia Tech. It is quite an accomplishment for Tatham, who leads all active Vikings with 71 career starts but missed 13 games because of injury in his first two seasons. DOUBLE-DIGIT WOES: A 10-point lead in the second half is usually a pretty good sign for the team ahead. Unfortunately for the Vikings this year, this has not been the case as CSU has dropped four games during which it had a 10-point or larger lead after the intermission, including three straight heading into Saturday's meeting with West Virginia Tech. An omen of the things came in the season opener against George Mason when CSU led the 2006 Final Four participant by as many as 16 points in the first half and 46-36 with 18:45 left before falling, 79-74. On Dec. 17 at Central Michigan, the Vikings held a 41-31 lead with 13:03 left but went on to lose in double overtime, 78-76. The last two games have been the hardest as CSU led Chicago State by 11 (65-54, 5:47) and UIC by 12 (50-38, 12:06) only to fall victim to scoring runs. . . . AND THE HALFTIME LEADS HAS BEEN SAFE HALF OF THE TIME: The Vikings have held the lead at the intermission in 10 of the 14 games this season, owning a 5-5 mark in those contests. Cleveland State has also lost all four games that it has trailed at the break (Evansville, Butler, Kansas State & Ohio State). OVERTIME: The overtime loss to Chicago State on Dec. 19 dropped CSU's all-time record in overtime games to 36-33, including a 22-16 record in home games. CSU was 2-1 in overtime games last season. . . . DOUBLE OVERTIME: The double overtime loss to Central Michigan on Dec. 17 marked the first time since an 87-85 win over Florida State in 2000-01 that CSU played a game to multiple overtime periods and it was only the second multi-overtime game since 1993-94. The Vikings are now 7-6 in multi-overtime contests. . . . MORE OVERTIME: The consecutive overtime losses to Chicago State and Central Michigan marked only the fifth time in program history that the Vikings played to overtime in back-to-back contests. It was also the first time that CSU dropped both games during the span as the Vikings previously swept twice and split twice. Cleveland State has never played three straight overtime games. THE FORTY-MINUTE FOUR: One peculiar statistic that came out of the Central Michigan game was minutes played. The Vikings entered the game without a player ranked among the top 15 in the Horizon League in minutes played (UW-Milwaukee's Paige Paulsen is 15th at 30.0), but four players played more than 40 of the game's 50 minutes. Raheem Moss led the way with 47 minutes, the fifth-highest single game total in CSU history while J'Nathan Bullock (45), Carlos English (45) and Joe Davis (41) each set career highs. Bullock now leads the team in minutes played (29.9). . . . AND MORE MINUTES FOR MOSS: Senior Raheem Moss followed up his 47-minute effort against Central Michigan by playing 41 minutes against Chicago State. A STEADY STARTING FIVE: After the Vikings had 13 different starting combinations in 27 games last year, Gary Waters has found some consistency this season in his starting five. He used the same starting five in each of the first 11 games, going with guards Carlos English, Victor Morris and Raheem Moss along with forwards J'Nathan Bullock and Patrick Tatham. The lineup changed at Central Michigan on Dec. 17 when Morris was unable to play because of a foot injury and freshman Joe Davis started for the first time. The 11 straight games is the longest stretch with the same group of starters in the last four seasons, surpassing the nine straight games started by a combination last year. Over the previous three years, CSU used 36 different starting combinations in 83 games. BULLOCK TAKES OVER SCORING ROLE: Forward J'Nathan Bullock has lived up to the preseason billing that made him a preseason second team All-Horizon League choice. He leads the Vikings and ranks 12th in the Horizon League in scoring (14.4), shooting .453 from the field (67-148) and .724 from the line (63-87). He has played especially well of late, scoring 23 points (on 8-for-11 shooting) at Central Michigan and 21 points at Ohio State, going three-for-six from three-point. Earlier in the year, he scored 22 points -- on 10-for-14 shooting -- in the Nov. 11 opener against George Mason and added 24 points against Buffalo on Nov. 17. . . . BULLOCK FINDS HIS MARK IN OTHER WAYS: One of the most impressive statistics about J'Nathan Bullock this year has nothing to do with shooting the basketball. In 14 games this year, Bullock has handed out 15 assists, including a career high three assists against Notre Dame College, Miami (Fla.) and Chicago State, to surpass the assist total that he compiled during his entire freshman season. Last year, Bullock had only nine assists in 28 games (and 707 minutes). BULLOCK'S FREE THROW REVERSAL: J'Nathan Bullock has undergone a metamorphosis at the foul line since late last season. Bullock shot just .597 from the line as a freshman (83-139), including a dismal .511 in the first 22 games (47-92). He finished the year strong, shooting .766 over the last six games (36-47) and then carried that improvement over to this season as he has made 63 of his 87 attempts this year (.724) to rank 12th in the league. Bullock was 10-for-12 from the line against Miami (Fla.), including a five-for-six effort in the final four minutes. A BUSY NOVEMBER: Despite playing the busiest November schedule in program history, the Vikings thrived, owning a 5-3 record in the month and setting a school record for wins in the month. The eight games played were the most ever in the month of November, a staggering total considering that they were played over a 19-day period. The total shattered the previous school standard of five games in November set in both 2000-01 and 2002-03. By comparison, CSU will play eight games during the 31 days in January and seven in December. . . . AND A BUSY YEAR: The Vikings are assured of playing at least 31 games this year, a figure surpassed just three times in CSU basketball history. The school record for games played in a season is 33, which was set in both 1985-86 and 1986-87. Most recently, the Vikings played 32 games in 2000-01. CSU will play 30 regular season contests this year and at least one game in the Horizon League Championship. . . . 13 BEFORE THE BREAK IS A RECORD: The Chicago State game closed a stretch that saw the Vikings play a record 13 games from the start of the year until the break for the holiday season. The previous high was 11 games, which was set in the 2000-01 campaign. The toughest part of the schedule was that eight of the 13 contests were played on the road. MOSS MOVES UP THREE-POINT CHART: Moss continues to make his mark as one of the most prolific three-point shooters in Viking history. He enters the week ranking sixth on the CSU charts in three-point field goals attempted (383) and seventh in three-pointers made (141). Moss needs six treys to move past Anthony Reed (1990-93), William Stanley (1987-80) and Theo Dixon (1997-02) and into fourth place in three-pointers made. Moss also needs five attempts to reach fifth-place Anthony Reed (1990-93). MENTORING PROGRAM BENEFITS VIKINGS: As part of Gary Waters' emphasis on education, the Viking coaching staff has organized a mentoring program that pairs each of the 16 players with a professional from the Cleveland area who is working within each players' field of study. For example, Munch Bishop, who does the morning sports reports on WMMS, is mentoring George Tandy, a junior communication major. THE VIKING BASKETBALL REPORT: A new addition to the television lineup this year is The Viking Basketball Report, a weekly half-hour show that includes game recaps, highlights and features on players and other elements featuring information about the CSU program. The show, which is hosted by Mike Cairns with commentary from head coach Gary Waters, airs several times each week on SportsTime Ohio. (A complete schedule is available online at www.sportstimeohio.com). TEACHING SUCCESS: Gary Waters taught the Vikings what it takes to achieve success by turning professor for a weekly "Success" class during the summer and preseason. The class, which uses legendary UCLA head coach John Wooden's book which outlined the Pyramid of Success, was held twice each week during the first summer school session and every Wednesday afternoon once school resumed in late August. The class has been a success as the Viking players have used Wooden's pyramid principles to define the items that they need for success, using them to build their own pyramid. WAITING IN THE WINGS: CSU fans may have to wait until next fall to see the true strength of the Viking recruiting class as three of the seven newcomers are transfers from other Division I schools and will have to sit out the 2006-07 season to meet NCAA transfer guidelines. The trio -- each of whom are juniors and will have two years of eligibility remaining -- includes guard Cedric Jackson and forwards Chris Moore and George Tandy. Jackson is the most experienced of the group, starting 35 games the last two years at Big East Conference member St. John's, while Tandy, a native of Indianapolis who played his senior year of high school at Cleveland's Lincoln West High, was named the Ohio Valley Conference Freshman of the Year in 2004-05 while playing at Eastern Illinois. Moore, who lives in Cleveland suburb of Lakewood and attended St. Edward High, returns home after playing two seasons at UC Santa Barbara. . . . AND CSU ADDS THREE DURING EARLY SIGNING PERIOD: Keeping a promise that he made at his introductory press conference, head coach Gary Waters stayed local, signing three players from northeast Ohio, including two from the greater Cleveland area, during the early signing period. The signees included: D'Aundray Brown (Youngstown, OH/Ursuline) Daitwan Eppinger (Garfield Heights, OH) Joe Latas (North Olmsted, OH/St. Peter Chanel). NEXT UP: The Vikings pause to ring in the New Year before resuming play with their first multi-city road trip of the season, playing Horizon League games at Loyola (Jan. 4) and UW-Green Bay (Jan. 6).
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