Jan. 3, 2009
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Contact: Brian McCann
DETROIT, Mich. - Trevon Harmon scored a career-high 10 points, eight of which came in the decisive five minutes, as Cleveland State defeated Detroit, 53-44, on Saturday afternoon in Calihan Hall.
The victory, CSU's second in a row in Calihan, improved the Vikings to 11-5 on the season and 2-2 in league play while Detroit slipped to 4-9 overall and 0-4 in league action.
J'Nathan Bullock led CSU with 12 points while George Tandy scored all of his nine points in the first half. Woody Payne and Nemanja Jokic led Detroit with 10 points each.
CSU improved to 2-22 all-time in games at Detroit.
"This game was a tale of two halves," CSU head coach Gary Waters said. "We played pretty well at both ends of the court in the first half, but got were tentative against their zone in the second half and allowed them to get back in the game.
When Norris Cole scored on a backdoor pass to open the second half, the Vikings led 36-20 and were seemingly on their way to a big victory.
But CSU struggled after that, making just seven of its 22 field goal attempts in the second half (.318), including a three-for-10 effort from the foul line.
The struggles allowed Detroit to slowly pull back into the game. The lead was at 10, 42-32 with 10:31 left when Chris Moore hit a short baseline jumper.
But the Titans would run off eight straight points, the last coming when Michael Harrington bullied his way to the basket from the low blocks, pulling to within 42-40 with 5:14.
Enter Harmon, the freshman guard who became eligible at the semester break and had slowly worked his way into the rotation over the previous four games.
With the shot clock running down, Harmon took a pass from Jeremy Montgomery deep in the left corner and tossed in a three-pointer to push the lead back to five.
After Detroit's Tryl Hartfield and CSU's Cedric Jackson each made one of two free throws, Harmon knocked down another try from the left side and one possession later, took a pass down low and scored on a drive to the hoop from the left side.
When the dust had settled, the Vikings were ahead 51-42 with 57 second left.
"Trey is going to make a lot of shots during his Viking career," Waters said. "He's just so new to the program and hasn't played in a year and a half that he needs some time to adjust. Still, today was a great example of what he can do and how he can do it at crucial times."
The 42 points by Detroit marked the sixth time this season that a Viking opponent failed to score more than 50 points, the most since the then Fenn Foxes accomplished it eight times during the 1946-47 season.
Although held to a season-low five steals, CSU did defend well enough to hold Detroit under 40-percent shooting for the game. The Titans made 16-of-43 field goal attempts (.372) to become the 10th opponent this season (in 16 games), and ninth in the last 11 games, to shoot below 40-percent.
At the other end of the court, CSU shot 52-percent in the first half (12-23) but struggled in the second half to shoot 42.2 percent for the game.
The Vikings played without the services of sophomore D'Aundray Brown, who suffered a shoulder injury in the first half of Tuesday's game at Wright State. With Brown out of the lineup, Waters opted to move Bullock to small forward and start Tandy at power forward. It was only the second starting lineup combination used this season.
The Vikings took control of play early in the first half and had an easy time of it in the first 20 minutes.
After Thomas Kennedy opened the scoring with a three-pointer at the 18:15 mark and Woody Payne quickly followed with a basket inside to put the Titans ahead, 5-2 (17:26), the Vikings responded with an 11-0 burst to open up a 13-5 advantage at the 12:00 mark.
Norris Cole opened the run with an old-fashioned three-point play and Bullock followed with seven straight points, four on a pair of short jumpers and the last three coming on a bomb from the left corner.
The Titans would pull to within 15-10 on a Payne layup in transition, but a three-point play by Tandy and another trey by Bullock, this time from the right arc, pushed CSU to a 21-10 lead with 7:34 left.
Detroit appeared to be fighting back just before half when Payne made a pair of free throws to pull the Titans to within 28-20 with 1:56 left but Chris Moore made one of two free throws, Jackson went coast-to-coast for a bucket after making a steal and then followed that up with a three-pointer from the top of the key as the shot clock wound down, putting CSU ahead, 34-20 at the break.
The 20 points by Detroit in the first half marked the seventh time this season that the Vikings held their opponent to 20 points or less in the opening stanza.
The Vikings return home for a pair of Horizon League games next week, hosting Loyola on Thursday (Jan. 8) and UIC on Saturday (Jan. 10). Each game is a doubleheader with the women's team playing at 5:00 p.m. followed by the men at 7:30 p.m. Fans attending the game can take advantage of the Alley-Oop Online schedule and download a form off CSUVikings.com that will allow them to purchase an $8 ticket for either or both games for $5 each.
