Jan. 24, 2010

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CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland State's Norris Cole became the 18th player in school history to score 1,000 career points, including a three-pointer with 6.9 seconds to play as the Vikings rallied from a nine point halftime deficit to claim a 73-72 win over Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon.

CSU improved to 9-12 overall and 5-4 in the Horizon League, while the Panthers fell to 12-9 overall and 4-5 in league play.

The win was CSU's 12th straight at home over a Horizon League opponent.

Cole hit 10-of-22 from the field, recording his 16th career 20-point game and seventh this season. His 1,000th career point came on a jumper with 3:48 left in the game.

Jeremy Montgomery added 18 points, while D'Aundray Brown finished with 12 points and seven rebounds.

CSU also finished with just five turnovers, three coming on offensive fouls, and none in the second half. The five miscues tied the school record for fewest turnovers in a game, which had occurred twice.

"These kids fought hard today in the second half and they knew that they were going to have to fight to make up the deficit," head coach Gary Waters said. "We had a couple of plays at the very end that were great, especially Tim's block."

After Cole's three-pointer, which remained a three-pointer after an official review, the Panthers came back quickly the other way and Ja'Rob McCallum appeared to have an open lane to the basket, but Tim Kamczyc came from the weak side to block the shot out of bounds with 1.1 seconds left.

It was Kamczyz's first career blocked shot.

"Tim did a great job of coming over to help on that play," Waters said. "If he didn't make that rotation, their guy probably had an easy look at a layup."

The Panthers had one more chance, but the inbounds pass was batted away by Aaron Pogue as CSU secured the win.

The Vikings trailed by four (72-68) with 1:16 to play, but D'Aundray Brown made a layup on the baseline and after a defensive stop, Cole dribbled from the top of the key to the right wing to hit what proved to be the game-winning three-pointer.

The Vikings took a quick 9-4 lead just four minutes in on a pair of Pogue free throws, but the Panthers would use a 16-4 run over the five minutes to assume a 20-13 lead with 10:52 left.

The Panthers used four three-pointers during the run as they began to find their range from long-distance.

It didn't stop there, as UWM would hit 7-of-12 (.583) from three-point in the first 20 minutes to claim a 39-30 lead at the half.

The Panthers continued their torrid shooting to start the second half, hitting three trifectas in the first 2:30 to extend the lead to 14 points (48-34) with 17:30 to play.

The lead was still 11 (57-46) with 11:34 showing on the clock, but CSU would employ its full-court press and pressure defense to force three Panther turnovers as part of a 10-0 run to pull within one (57-56) with 8:47 to play.

"When you put a press on and take it off, you never know when it will make much of an impact," Waters said. "Milwaukee is much bigger than us and we knew we would have to press them to keep them down and I thought we did a great job of creating turnovers in the second half off our press."

James Eayrs stopped the CSU run with a pair of free throws, but Montgomery answered on the other end with a three-pointer, tying the score at 59-59 with 7:57 left.

Ricky Franklin hit a pair of free throws and Deonte Roberts followed with a layup to push the lead back to four (63-59) for the Panthers, but the Vikings responded with a 9-2 run to regain a 68-65 lead with 3:48 to play on Cole's jumper.

But, Milwaukee came right back, scoring seven straight points to set up the wild finish.

CSU shot .439 (29-66) from the field, but were better in the second half when they made 17-of-35 (.486), including 6-of-11 from three-point.

UWM shot .522 (24-46) from the field, including 11-of-20 (.550) from three-point. However, the Panthers were hurt by their 17 turnovers, which CSU turned into 18 points.

The Vikings finished with 10 steals.

CSU is back in action on Saturday (Jan. 30) when the Vikings host Youngstown State at 4:00 p.m. The game can be seen live on ESPNU.