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Mieskoski's Weekly News and Notes
By Tom Mieskoski
Heading into the final week of Horizon League play with two games left, Cleveland State controls their own destiny for the third-seed in next's week's Horizon League Tournament. That's if CSU can win both of their road games this week at Valparaiso (8-20, 4-12 Horizon League) on Thursday and at No. 24 Butler (23-4, 13-3 HL) on Saturday.
The Vikings, who are a game back of UW-Green Bay (21-8, 12-4) for second place, still have a chance at the second-seed. If CSU wins both games this week and Green Bay loses both road games at Detroit (7-20, 2-14 HL) and Wright State (16-12, 10-6). If they both finish in a tie, Green Bay holds the tie-breaker because of a sweep of Milwaukee.
"We have to hold serve in these two games. The first game (at Valpo) is the most important game that we have played so far," said CSU coach Gary Waters. "If we lose to Valpo that puts us in a vine. You can go from third to fifth (place) pretty easily.
"And if we lose to Valpo we could lose all of our momentum we gained in winning seven straight. So we really got to play our very best to have a chance to win."
Valpo is coming off a 74-66 comeback victory against Akron, in which the Crusaders overcame an 18 point deficit, in last Saturday's ESPNU BracketBusters game.
Waters said Valpo is a much bigger team now then the team CSU beat 66-42 at the Wolstein Center on Dec. 2, 2008. "They're now starting a 6-9 kid inside (Cameron Witt) along the side of (Urule) Igbavboa. They moved (Howard) Little to the two and also start another kid who's 6-5 (Michael Rogers)," he said.
CSU is coming off a disappointing showing in their BracketBusters game at Wichita State last Saturday, as the Vikings allowed the Shockers to shoot 54 percent from the field, including giving up a season-high 10 3-pointers in a 70-59 loss.
"I don't think we played like ourselves. It looked like the Washington game and the Kansas State game. We never got on track and we didn't capitalize," said Waters. "With all that said, all we had to do was execute better on the defensive end and I think we could have won that game."
Saturday's regular season finale at Butler will be televised live by ESPN2 at noon. It will be the first time CSU has played at Hinkle Fieldhouse since losing last season's Horizon League Championship game, 70-55. CSU is 1-12 all-time at Hinkle Fieldhouse.
The Bulldogs need to win both of its games this week to clinch the first-seed and host the semi-finals.
There is still a possibility that CSU can win a share of the regular season title if they win both games this week, with Butler losing both games, and Green Bay needs to lose one of its two games. However, CSU doesn't own any of the tie-breakers, making it impossible for the Vikings to earn the top seed.
Green Bay can win the first-seed and host the semi-finals with two wins and a CSU victory over Butler.
Mid-Major top 25:
The Vikings moved down four spots to No. 18 in CollegeInsiders.com Mid-Major Top 25.
RPI Update:
As of Wednesday night (9:35 p.m.), CSU's RPI is 75. And with a 5-5 showing during BracketBusters weekend, the Horizon League moved down a spot to the 12th best conference in the country.
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