Cleveland State: Vikings' Loss to UW-Milwaukee Complicates Tournament Picture

Despite their disappointing loss to Old Dominion on Sunday in their ESPN BracketBusters matchup, the Cleveland State Vikings entered this weekend in a relatively favorable position. Heading into their game on Thursday night against the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers, the Vikings were in first place in the Horizon League with a one-game lead over Valparaiso.

Wins over the Panthers on Thursday and University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Saturday would guarantee that the Vikings would earn the first seed in the Horizon League Tournament and earn a valuable double bye and a guaranteed trip to the tournament semifinals.

After an initial hot start to the game, a perfect storm of poor shooting and foul trouble sent the Vikings to the locker room at halftime down by nine points. To the Vikings’ credit, this deficit was a large improvement from the 17-point deficit that the Vikings had faced with approximately five minutes left in the first half.

Aaron Pogue and Luda Ndaye, two of the Vikings’ big men, were plagued with foul trouble. To make matters worse for the Vikings, Cleveland State shot 34 percent from the field. The Vikings’ trademark stifling defense was also uncharacteristically absent as the Panthers shot almost 60 percent from the field. If not for the Panthers’ nine turnovers, the half would have been much worse for Cleveland State.

The Vikings came out somewhat flat in the second half. After a brief initial surge in which the Vikings pulled to within five early in the second half, the Panthers were able to gradually extend their lead to 19 points with slightly less than 13 minutes left in the second half. Although the Vikings shot the ball much better in the second half, they spent much of the second half trading baskets with the Panthers.

The flow of the game dramatically changed with approximately nine minutes left in the second half, when the Vikings’ trademark tough defense combined with improved shooting to make the game extremely close. The Vikings’ stifling full-court press finally began to seriously disrupt the flow of the Panthers offense, forcing the Panthers into several ill-advised shots and a number of turnovers.

On the offensive end, Trevon Harmon and Jeremy Montgomery began to heat up and knock down shots, and a raucous Wolstein Center crowd began to believe that the Vikings were on their way to a dramatic comeback.

Sadly, time ran out on the Vikings’ furious comeback. Although the Vikings were able to pull within five with approximately three minutes left in the game, the Panthers’ solid free-throw shooting and several key offensive rebounds by the Panthers kept the Vikings from pulling any closer than within three points with nine seconds left in the game.

The Vikings’ loss means that they no longer control their own fate in the Horizon League Tournament. In order to obtain a first or second seed and a much-coveted double bye in the tournament, the Vikings will need to win on Saturday and hope that Butler or the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee lose as well.

However, Vikings fans shouldn’t start raising the white flag on the season just yet. In 2009, a third-seeded Vikings team was able to win four games in seven days, including two on the road, to win the Horizon League Championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The core of this year’s squad played on the 2009 team as well, and the experience that they obtained during the 2009 tournament run could prove very valuable if the Vikings are once again forced to win four games to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.