Feb. 23, 2008
Final Stats | Quotes | Notes
Contact: Brian McCann
CLEVELAND, Ohio - J'Nathan Bullock scored a game-high 19 points and grabbed 13 rebounds for his 11th career double-double as Cleveland State knocked off Marist, 59-44, on Saturday evening in an ESPNU BracketBusters game in the Wolstein Center.
The win was also the 200th career victory for Viking head coach Gary Waters, who is now 200-167 in 12 years as a collegiate coach.
"The 200 wins are good, but I don't put much stock into it," Waters said. "I just come to work and get the job done."
The win improved CSU to 19-11 overall, while Marist fell to 15-13. The 19 wins is the sixth best in school-history and the most since the 2000-01 squad also won 19 games.
"I felt that we allowed Marist to control the tempo to long," Waters said. "We got after them defensively and held them to 29-percent shooting. That's pretty good defense, but we were not capitalizing on the offensive end.
"When Marist cut our lead to two points, there was no panic by our guys. We knew we had to shut them down on defense and execute on offense and that's exactly what we did."
Cedric Jackson and Norris Cole finished with 10 points apiece, while Jackson added six rebounds, three steals and three assists.
Ryan Stilphen led Marist with nine points and 10 rebounds as no Red Fox player reached double figures.
The Vikings claimed their largest lead of the first half (25-18) with 3:31 to play following a jumper by D'Aundray Brown. However, Marist went on a mini 4-1 run to slice the lead to four points (26-22) at halftime.
CSU pushed its lead to 11 points (38-27) just six minutes into the second half, but Marist responded with a three-pointer from Shae McNamara and a pair of free throws by Ryan Schnedier to cut the lead back to six points.
But the Vikings came right back as Jackson hit a three-pointer and George Tandy converted two free throws to push the lead back to 11 points (43-32) with 9:48 to go.
From there, the Red Foxes scored 12 of the next 15 points and cut the CSU lead to just two points (46-44) with 4:42 to play in the game. But Marist could get no closer as CSU scored the final 13 points of the contest, starting with a Bullock three-point play to push the lead back to five points.
CSU hit 20-of-46 (.435) from the field and was 15-of-18 (.833) at the free throw line. A tenacious Viking defense limited Marist to just .296 (16-54) shooting from the field, including only 3-of-20 (.150) from three-point. Marist also hit just 9-of-17 (.529) at the free throw line. The Red Foxes did outrebound CSU, 35-33, but committed 14 turnovers that CSU turned into 17 points. The Vikings turned the ball over 13 times.
CSU will conclude the regular season on Saturday, March 1, when the Vikings head to Youngstown State for a 7:00 p.m. contest.
