Feb. 21, 2007
Contact: Brian McCann
DETROIT, Mich. - Ryvon Covile and Brandon Cotton combined to score 34 points, 22 coming in the second half, as Detroit rallied from a five-point halftime deficit to claim a 60-48 win over Cleveland State on Wednesday night in Calihan Hall.
Bahaadar Russell and J'Nathan Bullock led CSU with 10 points each. Covile paced the Titans with 22 points and 13 rebounds with Cotton and Jon Goode adding 12 points each.
The loss drops the Vikings to 9-20 overall and 2-13 in Horizon League play. Detroit improves to 11-17, 6-9. The Titans now own a 32-9 lead in the all-time series with CSU dropping to 0-20 all-time in games played at Detroit.
Covile and Cotton fueled the Titan rally. Covile, who returned this year after missing the 2005-06 season with a knee injury, scored 12 of his points in the first 10 minutes of the second half to give Detroit a 48-43 lead with 6:32 left.
Cotton took over from their, scoring three straight baskets to push the lead to 52-43 with 3:59 left and effectively deny the Vikings a chance to rally.
"This is an unfortunate loss for us because we played so hard," head coach Gary Waters said. "Just like we did at Wright State last week, we put ourselves into a position to claim a road win but couldn't put the game away. We were right where we wanted to be with 10 minutes left but then we let the game get away from us.
"Covile was the difference because when Detroit decided to pound the ball inside to him to start the second half, we didn't have an answer. We had defended him pretty well in the first half, but once he got going, he was very hard to defend. We aren't a very big team and we have had a problem all season long defending against big and active posts like Coville.
"We need to come home on Saturday and put this game out of our heads and get ready for Youngstown State. We did an awful lot of things right tonight but we just didn't leave with the win. We need to build on the effort that we had in the first half and send our seniors out with a win on Saturday."
Cleveland State controlled play offensively in the opening half, trailing for just 20 seconds.
Opening baskets from Joe Davis and Patrick Tatham staked CSU to a 4-0 advantage. The lead would grow to 9-2 with 13:58 left on a three-pointer from Bahaadar Russell and a tip-in from J'Nathan Bullock.
Detroit struggled offensively, finding most of their first half scoring from the perimeter.
A three-pointer from Brandon Bell pulled the Titans to within 12-8 with 12:12 left but a dunk in transition from Tatham and two free throws from Davis extended the Viking advantage to a first-half high eight points, 16-8 with 10:01 remaining.
Detroit would rally to tie the game at 18-18 (4:34) on a tip-in of his own miss by Cotton.
Russell countered with a pair of free throws for CSU before the Titans took their only lead of the half, 21-20 with 3:45 left, when Bell buried a long three-pointer from the left side.
The lead was short-lived as Raheem Moss answered with a trey from the left corner and subsequent baskets inside from Davis and Tatham helped CSU take a 28-23 lead into the locker room.
The halftime lead marked the first time since the first meeting with Detroit on Jan. 13 (11 games ago) that the Vikings lead at halftime.
Detroit scored the first five points of the second stanza - the final three coming on a long trey from Muhammad Abdur-Rahim - to even the game at 28-28 just 48 seconds into the period.
CSU would hold Detroit off as Davis connected on a three-pointer to extend the lead back to 33-30 with 15:58 left.
But the Vikings would not have an answer for Covile inside as the senior continually scored inside, knocking down 12 points in the first 11 minutes of the half to help Detroit take its largest lead, 44-41 with 8:36 left.
Cleveland State would go on a shooting slump at a bad time, missing five straight field goal attempts just as Cotton was warming up.
Three straight field goals in the lane from Cotton would extend the Titan lead to 52-43 with 3:59 left and the Vikings would get no closer than eight the rest of the way.
Cleveland State, which had averaged just 10.0 turnovers over its previous seven games, committed 17 turnovers in the contest, the most since making 18 miscues at Ohio State on Dec. 9.
The Vikings return home to close the regular season on Saturday (Feb. 24) with a Senior Night affair against Youngstown State beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Wolstein Center. The contest is a doubleheader with the women's team squaring off with YSU at 3:00 p.m. with both games being televised throughout Ohio on SportsTime Ohio.
