In Horizon League champion Cleveland State (25-10), eighth-ranked Wake Forest (24-6) will face a team that has reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 23 years — a program that Coach Gary Waters has turned around in three years. Wake and Cleveland State have never met.
The Vikings, the 13th seed in the Midwest Region, got the automatic bid by defeating 17th-ranked Butler 57-54 in the conference title game, led by tournament MVP Cedric Jackson, who had 19 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in the final. He's a 6-3 senior guard — sounds kind of like their Greivis Vazquez. Jackson averaged 5.7 rebounds and a Horizon-leading 5.4 assists and 3.0 steals.
Cleveland State's leading scorer (15.3) and rebounder (7.0) is another senior, 6-5 J'Nathan Bullock. In fact, three of the five starters against Butler were seniors, arguably giving the Vikings an advantage in experience when they face fourth-seeded Wake on Friday at American Airlines Arena inMiami. They were 10-21 in Waters' first season and 4-25 five years ago.
In team stats, Cleveland State looks unspectacular but solid just about everywhere except assists. The Vikings led the Horizon League in assists per game (14.1), turnover margin (3.49) and assists-to-turnovers ratio (1.1). They averaged 66.1 points (fifth in the conference) and allowed 58.9 (third).
The winner will face either fifth-seeded Utah (24-9) or 12th-seeded Arizona (19-13) on Sunday. How did the Wildcats even get into the field. Was it a lifetime achievement award. They lost five of their final six games, including their first Pac-10 tournament game.
and allowed
Cleveland State defeated Butler 57-54 in the Horizon championship game.
Comments
Thanks
Tue, 08/11/2009 - 12:29 — YachtsThank you very much.
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I liked Clev State better
Mon, 03/16/2009 - 08:43 — gvillegatrwhen Rollie Massimino coached them!
Poor Rollie!
Mon, 03/16/2009 - 11:34 — JPDOhioHe just couldn't recreate the Villanova magic on Euclid Avenue.
Look for Clevland state to
Sun, 03/15/2009 - 23:09 — psh0117Look for Clevland state to pull the upset. wake has been slipping for a long time, and it wouldn't surprise me if they lost in the first round.
Not the Vikings.
Mon, 03/16/2009 - 08:36 — JPDOhioI do agree that Wake is slipping and I don't expect them to last very long either. But it won't be Cleveland State who beats them. They are good and played well in beating Butler for the Horizon League title, but I have also watched them lose to Youngstown State, which is improving, but hasn't been very good for years. Wake should win the first one even on a bad day.
You're probably right, and I
Mon, 03/16/2009 - 13:33 — psh0117You're probably right, and I do think that Wake should win, but there is always someone out there gunning for you, and they could be put upset alert. When it gets down to 14 seeds and higher, these first round games can get crazy. it should be interesting to see how well the acc can do.