Jan. 30, 2007
Contact: Brian McCann
MILWAUKEE, Wis. - Cleveland State rallied from a 12-point first half deficit to force overtime but two Viking shots in the final five seconds fell short, allowing UW-Milwaukee to escape with a 57-56 win on Monday night in U.S. Cellular Arena.
Bahaadar Russell led the Vikings with 20 points, 15 of which came in the second half and overtime, while J'Nathan Bullock added 12 points. Avery Smith led the Panthers with 17 points while Allan Hanson and Kevin Massiah added 12 and 10 points, respectively.
Cleveland State, which never led in the contest, had an opportunity to win the game when the Vikings forced a shot-clock violation against the Panthers with 25 seconds left but Russell's three-pointer bounced off the rim and Raheem Moss' follow-up was off the mark as time expired.
"This was a tough loss for us tonight," head coach Gary Waters said. "We struggled to get things going in the first half but it showed a lot that we were able to come back and put ourselves into a position to win.
"We executed the play at the end of the overtime very well and J'Nathan came open, but Bahaadar just couldn't get the ball down to him so the play went to other options.
Cleveland State started the contest slowly on offense, making just one of its first 16 field goal attempts and ultimately falling behind, 17-5 with 6:45 left. The Vikings regrouped, making five of their last nine shots of the half to close the gap to 23-18 at the intermission.
Patrick Tatham broke the Panther press and scored on a coast-to-coast layup with 17:06 left to finish an 8-3 run to open the second half that evened the score at 26-26.
UW-Milwaukee would not relinquish the lead, rebuilding it to 38-30 with 10:29 left on a three-pointer by Roman Gentry. The Vikings countered with seven straight points, including a three-pointer by Joe Davis and field goals from Bullock and Victor Morris, to close to within 38-37 with 8:11 left.
The Panthers would push the lead to as many as six (43-37, 6:27) before Russell scored all eight points during an 8-2 Viking run that tied the game for the second time, 45-45 with 2:57 left.
Smith put the Panthers back on top with two free throws with 2:31 left and the two teams would go scoreless for the next two minutes.
A fluke play on an inbounds pass with 35 seconds left allowed the Vikings to forced overtime. With UWM leading 47-45 and in-bounding from underneath its own basket, Gentry threw a long inbounds pass to the top of the key, but no Panther was there to receive it. Morris tracked it down and was headed for a breakaway field goal before Hanson fouled him from behind.
Morris made both free throws with 30 seconds left and the Viking defense denied the Panthers a shot on its final possession to force overtime.
A three-pointer by Hanson just 13 seconds into the overtime period put UW-Milwaukee ahead and the Panthers led by as many as five, 57-52 with 2:18 left.
The Vikings rallied with Russell scoring off his own steal at the 1:53 mark and Bullock scoring inside off a nice pass by Morris with 1:04 remaining to close out the scoring.
Cleveland State rebounded from shooting 24-percent in the first half (6-25) to shoot .482 (14-29) the rest of the game while holding UW-Milwaukee to .339 shooting for the game (19-56).
The Vikings also had a shooting edge at the foul line, making 12 of their 15 free throws (.800) while the Panthers could manage just .632 shooting (12-19).
"Our defensive effort was pretty good tonight," Waters said. "Milwaukee had problems with our zone defense, especially in the second half, and we were able to force some turnovers and make them take some shots that they didn't want to take."
After going two-for-eight from the field in the first half, Russell caught fire after the break, making five of his final nine shots to record his second career 20-point game. He fell one point shy of his career scoring high of 21 points, which was set against Detroit on Jan. 13, but did record his fifth straight double figure scoring game.
Russell is now averaging 16.8 points since moving into the starting lineup five games ago.
Cleveland State returns home to close the current four-games in eight days stretch with home games against Loyola on Thursday (Feb. 1) and UW-Green Bay on Saturday (Feb. 3).
