Jan. 6, 2005
FAIRBORN, Ohio -- A tired Cleveland State team closed out a five-game, nearly month-long road trip with a 73-57 loss at Wright State on Thursday night in the Nutter Center. The Raiders sent the Vikings to their seventh straight defeat by shooting 53.8 percent from the field, taking advantage of their quickness to score 32 points in the paint.
Wright State held a commanding 35-21 advantage on the boards, including 11 offensive rebounds that led to 19 second chance points.
Omari Westley paced CSU with 18 points and 11 rebounds for his team-leading sixth double-double of the season. Mike Redell added a career-high 15 points, knocking down five three-pointers.
The combination of Zach Williams' power and DeShaun Wood's quickness proved to be too much for the Vikings to handle. A majority of Williams' game-high 19 points were from close range while Wood penetrated into the lane for nearly all of his 16 points.
"We came out sluggish at the start of the game and Wright State took advantage of it," head coach Mike Garland said. "Once they built up the lead, they became very comfortable on offense, running time off the clock on each possession and making us expend a lot of energy on defense. That made it very hard to come back.
"It was good to get both Raheem (Moss) and Frashon (McGee) back into the lineup but after they missed the last couple of games they will need to play back into shape. Still, the return of those two adds another dimension to our offense and defense, allowing us to get back to the pressure and tempo that we prefer."
In the first half, WSU shot 54.8 percent, working the ball inside to the tune of 22 points in the paint while turning nine Viking turnovers into 16 points en route to claiming a 40-25 advantage.
Cleveland State started slow offensively, scoring just nine points in the first nine minutes to trail 18-9. The Vikings used a quick 6-2 burst to pull within five, but WSU immediately answered with a 10-0 run to surge ahead 30-15 with 3:34 remaining in the half. Wood fueled the run with three straight baskets and Williams capped it off with back-to-back buckets.
The Raiders, who never trailed in the game, scored the first four points of the second stanza and were never seriously challenged, extending the lead to as many as 21 on two occasions.
With the loss, Cleveland falls to 3-7 on the year and 0-2 in the Horizon League while extending a pair of forgettable streaks. The Vikings have now dropped 23 straight regular season league games and 20 in a row on the road in the conference. Wright State improved to 7-7 overall and 2-1 in the league.
Redell, a freshman from Rockford, Mich., took advantage of his second career start, going five-of-nine from three-point after heading into the contest having made just two of 13 treys.
"Mike continues to show us the presence that made him one of the players that we recruited the most last year," Garland said. "With both Mike and Steve (Gansey) in the starting lineup, they are getting some solid experience that will only serve to benefit the program down the road."
The Vikings return home to play their only home contest in a 10-game stretch when CSU hosts Youngstown State on Saturday (Jan. 8) beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Convocation Center.
"It will be good to play at home on Saturday," Garland added. "It has been a long time since we have played in front of a home crowd and it will be good to draw on the energy that they provide us."
The Youngstown State game, which will be proceeded by the Viking women against Detroit at 3:00 p.m., has been designated as Take A Kid To A Game Day. Fans in attendance will get a free youth ticket (grades 8 and younger) for each adult ticket purchased.
